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SUMMARY COMMENTARY


INTRODUCTION

This article presents an analysis of the characteristics and international trading activities of Australian exporters in 2005-06. The information is compiled as a by-product of producing regular monthly and quarterly statistics on Australia's merchandise trade and international trade in services.

Estimates relating to exporters of merchandise goods are compiled from data sourced from the Australian Customs Service (Customs) and from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Australian Business Register. The methodology used to derive numbers of goods exporters has recently changed and estimates for 2005-06 cannot be compared to previous years. More details about this revised methodology are contained in the feature article New Methodology for Deriving Counts of Australian Exporters, released on the ABS website on 7 April 2006.

Estimates relating to exporters of offshore services are also included. Services exporter counts are derived from the ABS Survey of International Trade in Services (SITS). The coverage of SITS was improved during 2005-06 with the identified population of businesses exporting and/or importing services increasing from 3,299 to 4,615. Of these, 2,513 were identified as active exporters in 2005-06. For more information please refer to Changes to International Trade in Services Statistics, August 2006 released with the August 2006 issue of International Trade in Goods and Services (cat. no. 5368.0). This improved coverage has increased the value of services exports and the number of services exporters. The increased value has been applied proportionally to back series to maintain consistency across the time series but the number of service exporters could not be revised. Therefore, counts of services exporters for 2005-06 are not comparable to previous years. The value of services exports are compiled from SITS and a variety of administrative sources.

The first table in this article presents an overview covering exporters of both goods and services. Tables 2 to 9 present more detailed information on goods exporters and table 10 presents additional information on services exporters.

The Explanatory Notes attached to this article provide important information relating to the methodology used and the limitations in the resulting data. In particular, it is important to note that a business that considers itself part of an export market may not necessarily be included as an exporter in this article. For example, many agricultural products are exported by wholesalers rather than the producers of the good. If the wholesaler owns the goods at the time of export, the wholesaler is included as the exporter .

NUMBER AND CHARACTERISTICS OF AUSTRALIAN EXPORTERS


OVERVIEW

As shown in table 1, there were 42,194 Australian exporters in 2005-06. Of these, 40,849 were exporters of merchandise goods, and 2,513 were exporters of services.

Of the businesses engaged in exporting services an estimated 1,168 (46%) businesses were also exporters of merchandise goods.

There were 216 goods exporters with aggregate exports of $100m or more in 2005-06. Although these businesses were less than 1% of the total goods exporter population they contributed 77% by value to total goods exports. In contrast, 27,399 (67%) of goods exporters contributed less than 1% by value to total goods exports.

38% of goods exporters were businesses exporting goods valued between $10,000 and $100,000, with businesses exporting goods valued below $10,000 equalling 29% of goods exporters.

Businesses exporting services with aggregate exports of $100m or more represented 1% of total services exporters and contributed 21% by value to total services exports in 2005-06. Businesses exporting services with aggregate exports below $1m represented 66% of total services exporters.

TABLE 1: EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS, 2005-06
	Exporters	Contribution to total number	Value of exports	Contribution to total value
	no.	%	$m	%
Goods exporters by value of each business' exports
$100m or more	216	1	116 900	77
$1m and less than $100m	3 903	10	31 734	21
$100,000 and less than $1m	9 331	23	3 125	2
$10,000 and less than $100,000	15 552	38	574	-
Less than $10,000	11 847	29	57	-
Total goods exporters	40 849	100	152 390	100
Services exporters by value of each business' exports
$100m or more	26	1	8 613	21
$1m and less than $100m	838	33	7 742	19
Less than $1m	1 649	66	322	1
Other services exporters(a)	na	na	25 272	60
Total services exporters	2 513	100	41 949	100
Total exporters
Total exporters(b)	42 194	. .	194 339	. .
. . not applicable
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
na not available
(a) Value of exports of travel, insurance, financial and government services exports. Numbers of exporters cannot be estimated for these service types as the Survey of International Trade in Services is not used to measure these exports.
(b) This total excludes duplication of 1,168 businesses which exported both goods and services in 2005-06.

EXPORT ACTIVITY

As shown in table 2, 18,293 (45%) of total goods exporters lodged 1 or 2 export transactions during 2005-06. The majority of these exporters (10,892) were businesses with aggregate exports of less than $10,000. Businesses which exported on fewer than 11 occasions in 2005-06 were 72% of total goods exporters.

4,159 (10%) of goods exporters had more than 50 export transactions in 2005-06. In value terms, 166 of these exporters contributed $105,826m (69%) to the total value of goods exports in 2005-06.

TABLE 2: GOODS EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS by NUMBER of EXPORT TRANSACTIONS, 2005-06
	Number of export transactions
Value of each business exports	1 to 2	3 to 10	11 to 20	21 to 50	51 or more	Total
Number of Exporters (no.)
$100m or more	-	10	10	30	166	216
$1m and less than $100m	73	172	246	655	2 757	3 903
$100,000 and less than $1m	885	2 592	2 147	2 504	1 203	9 331
$10,000 and less than $100,000	6 443	7 614	1 169	293	33	15 552
Less than $10,000	10 892	922	27	6	-	11 847
Total goods exporters	18 293	11 310	3 599	3 488	4 159	40 849
Value of exports ($m)
$100m or more	-	2 071	2 089	6 915	105 826	116 900
$1m and less than $100m	312	1 388	1 526	2 895	25 613	31 734
$100,000 and less than $1m	217	647	624	958	679	3 125
$10,000 and less than $100,000	182	296	73	20	2	574
Less than $10,000	51	6	-	-	-	57
Total goods exporters	762	4 409	4 312	10 787	132 120	152 390
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

INDUSTRY

For goods, the exporting business as defined in this analysis is the owner of the good at the time of export and not necessarily the producer of the exported commodity.

In terms of their contribution to the total value of goods exports, the most significant exporting industries were mining (39%), manufacturing (30%) and wholesale trade (19%), as shown in table 3. These three industries accounted for $135,438m (89%) of the value of goods exports in 2005-06.

The industries with the highest number of goods exporters in 2005-06 were wholesale trade 11,834 (29%) and manufacturing 10,358 (25%).

The average value of exports per business in 2005-06 was $3.7m. The mining industry had the highest average value of aggregate exports ($123.9m per exporter), followed by manufacturing ($4.5m per exporter), finance and insurance ($2.9m per exporter) and wholesale trade ($2.5m per exporter). The lowest average value of aggregate exports per exporter occurred in the health and community services and cultural and recreational services industries, with approximately $0.2m per business.

TABLE 3: GOODS EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS by INDUSTRY, 2005-06
		Exporters	Contribution to total number	Value of exports	Contribution to total value
Industry of exporter		no.	%	$m	%
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	1 123	2.7	1 869	1.2
	Mining	483	1.2	59 848	39.3
	Manufacturing	10 358	25.4	46 264	30.4
	Electricity, gas and water supply	84	0.2	159	0.1
	Construction	1 042	2.6	328	0.2
	Wholesale trade	11 834	29.0	29 326	19.2
	Retail trade	4 205	10.3	2 201	1.4
	Transport and storage	1 173	2.9	1 764	1.2
	Communication services	286	0.7	77	0.1
	Finance and insurance	827	2.0	2 402	1.6
	Property and business services	3 886	9.5	5 039	3.3
	Health and community services	341	0.8	66	-
	Cultural and recreational services	630	1.5	110	0.1
	Personal and other services	497	1.2	570	0.4
	Other(a)	981	2.4	1 040	0.7
	All goods exporters with an ABN	37 749	92.4	151 063	99.1
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	3 100	7.6	1 327	0.9
Total goods exporters		40 849	100.0	152 390	100.0
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Includes goods exporters in the accommodation, cafes and restaurants; education; and government administration and defence industries; as well as those newly established businesses yet to confirm their main industry of activity with the Australian Taxation Office.

Table 4 compares the industry of the exporting business with the industry of origin of the commodity exported.

Mining commodities (80%) had the highest correlation between the industry that generally produced them i.e. the mining industry, and the industry which exported the final product. In contrast, only 10% of Australia's agriculture, forestry and fishing commodity exports were exported by the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry. Other industries exported 86% of agriculture, forestry and fishing commodities.

Exports of manufactured goods were $81.1b in 2005-06, of which $42.8b (53%) were exported by the manufacturing industry, $23.2b (29%) by other industries and $13.2b (16%) by the mining industry.

TABLE 4: GOODS EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS by Commodity Industry of Origin, 2005-06
Industry of exporter		Agriculture forestry and fishing	Mining	Manufacturing	Other	Total goods exports
Value of exports ($m)
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	1 061	1	806	1	1 869
	Mining	-	46 585	13 229	36	59 848
	Manufacturing	266	1 412	42 828	1 759	46 264
	Other	8 735	9 914	23 219	1 212	43 082
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	58	121	1 000	149	1 327
	All goods exporters	10 120	58 032	81 082	3 157	152 390
Contribution to total value (Percentage)
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	10.5	-	1.0	-	1.2
	Mining	-	80.3	16.3	1.2	39.3
	Manufacturing	2.6	2.4	52.8	55.7	30.4
	Other	86.3	17.1	28.6	38.4	28.3
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	0.6	0.2	1.2	4.7	0.9
	All goods exporters	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

SIZE OF BUSINESS

Two different size measures are used for goods exporters in this article. They are the value of each business' exports (see table 1), and the size of the exporting businesses (see table 5 and 9). Traditionally the ABS has used employment to determine the size of a business in its economic collections because this has been the only sizing variable generally available. However, many significant exporters do not have large employment.

For the purposes of this analysis, the size of the business has been determined in terms of three variables - its employment and estimated annual turnover (both derived from the ATO Australian Business Register) and the value of exports (reported to Customs).

The sizing classification criteria applied to goods exporters with an ABN are:

• small businesses - having fewer than 20 payees and estimated annual Goods and Services Taxation (GST) turnover range less than $1m and exports of less than $1m during the reference period
• large businesses - having 200 or more payees or estimated annual GST turnover range of $20m or more or exports of $20m or more during the reference period
• medium businesses - all businesses other than those defined as small or large.

There were 4,136 large goods exporting businesses in 2005-06 representing 10% of all goods exporting businesses but $140.0b of goods exports (or 92% of the value of total goods exports). The industries with the largest number of large goods exporters were manufacturing (1,315) and wholesale trade (1,014). In terms of exports value, mining ($59.4b), manufacturing ($42.0b) and wholesale trade ($25.1b) were the most significant contributors to the large business category.

There were 16,815 medium goods exporting businesses in 2005-06 representing 41% of all goods exporting businesses and $11.0b (7%) of the value of total goods exports. The industries with the largest number of medium goods exporting businesses were manufacturing (5,203) and wholesale trade (5,631).

There were 19,898 small goods exporters in 2005-06 representing 49% of total goods exporters. They contributed $1.3b (1%) to the value of total goods exports in 2005-06.

TABLE 5a: GOODS EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS by BUSINESS SIZE, 2005-06
		number of exporters				value of exporters ($m)
		Large	Medium	Small	Total	Large	Medium	Small	Total
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	73	467	583	1 123	1 315	497	57	1 869
	Mining	167	151	165	483	59 393	437	18	59 848
	Manufacturing	1 315	5 203	3 840	10 358	42 021	3 945	298	46 264
	Construction	85	469	488	1 042	137	162	29	328
	Wholesale trade	1 014	5 631	5 189	11 834	25 071	3 813	442	29 326
	Retail trade	336	1 570	2 299	4 205	1 560	528	113	2 201
	Transport and storage	173	522	478	1 173	1 286	425	53	1 764
	Finance and insurance	148	384	295	827	2 166	211	25	2 402
	Property and business services	312	1 413	2 161	3 886	4 322	574	143	5 039
	Other (a)	503	976	1 339	2 818	1 643	308	71	2 022
	All goods exporters with an ABN	4 126	16 786	16 837	37 749	138 914	10 900	1 249	151 063
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	10	29	3 061	3 100	1 094	136	97	1 327
	Total goods exporters	4 136	16 815	19 898	40 849	140 008	11 036	1 346	152 390

TABLE 5b: GOODS EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS by BUSINESS SIZE, 2005-06
		Contribution to total number (percentage)				Contribution to total value (percentage)
		Large	Medium	Small	Total	Large	Medium	Small	Total
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	6.5	41.6	51.9	100.0	70.4	26.6	3.0	100.0
	Mining	34.6	31.3	34.2	100.0	99.2	0.7	-	100.0
	Manufacturing	12.7	50.2	37.1	100.0	90.8	8.5	0.6	100.0
	Construction	8.2	45.0	46.8	100.0	41.8	49.4	8.8	100.0
	Wholesale trade	8.6	47.6	43.8	100.0	85.5	13.0	1.5	100.0
	Retail trade	8.0	37.3	54.7	100.0	70.9	24.0	5.1	100.0
	Transport and storage	14.7	44.5	40.8	100.0	72.9	24.1	3.0	100.0
	Finance and insurance	17.9	46.4	35.7	100.0	90.2	8.8	1.0	100.0
	Property and business services	8.0	36.4	55.6	100.0	85.8	11.4	2.8	100.0
	Other(a)	17.8	34.6	47.5	100.0	81.3	15.2	3.5	100.0
	All goods exporters with an ABN	10.9	44.5	44.6	100.0	92.0	7.2	0.8	100.0
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	0.3	0.9	98.7	100.0	82.4	10.2	7.3	100.0
	Total goods exporters	10.1	41.2	48.7	100.0	91.9	7.2	0.9	100.0
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Includes goods exporters engaged in electricity, gas and water supply; communication services; accommodation, cafes and restaurants; health and community services; cultural and recreational services; personal and other services; education; and government administration and defence industries as well as those newly established businesses yet to confirm their main industry of activity with the Australian Taxation Office.

STATE ESTIMATES

Two different concepts are used to measure the state distribution of goods exporters in this article.

The first measure is a count of the number of businesses which export goods that were produced in a given state based on information supplied to Customs with export documentation. The second measure is a count of the number of businesses engaged in exporting activities within a given state based on state of business location data as supplied to the ATO when the business initially registered for GST or subsequently underwent a change in business structure.

Businesses may export commodities produced within their state of location, or another state. As there are some businesses which source exports from more than one state of origin, and may have operations in more than one state of location, the state figures in table 6 sum to more than the Australian goods exporter totals.

An exporter is defined as having locations within the state of origin of the exported commodity if

• the postcode of the exporter is in the same state as the state of origin of the export, or
• the exporter has multi-state locations, one of which matches the state of origin of the export.

In 2005-06 36,356 goods exporters had at least one business location in the same state as the state of origin of the commodities they exported. 26,041 goods exporters exported commodities that originated from states in which they were not located.

TABLE 6: Goods Exporters, state estimates, 2005-06(a)
	Number of Goods Exporters
State of origin of the exported commodity	Locations in state of origin	Locations not in state of origin	Total
New South Wales	12 359	3 287	15 646
Victoria	9 984	2 915	12 899
Queensland	6 433	2 422	8 855
South Australia	2 212	1 096	3 308
Western Australia	3 706	1 152	4 858
Tasmania	392	383	775
Northern Territory	226	217	443
Australian Capital Territory	np	np	np
Other goods exporters(b)	np	np	np
Total goods exporters	. .	. .	40 849
. . not applicable
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) The sum of exporter numbers in this table exceeds total goods exporters because an exporter may export goods which originate from more than one state.
(b) State details for these exporters cannot be released for confidentiality reasons.

As shown in table 7, 31% of Australia's total goods exports in 2005-06 came from Western Australia, followed by Queensland (23%), New South Wales (18%) and Victoria (12%).

Western Australia ($26.9b) and Queensland ($20.5b) have combined mining exports of $47.3b, representing 79% of total mining industry exports in 2005-06. New South Wales ($11.9b) and Victoria ($9.9b) with combined manufacturing exports of $21.9b, contribute 47% to the total value of manufacturing goods exports.

TABLE 7: GOODS EXPORTERS, VALUE of EXPORTS by INDUSTRY of EXPORTER and STATE of ORIGIN of the EXPORTED COMMODITY, 2005-2006
Industry of exporter		NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	NT	Total goods exports(a)
Value of exports ($m)
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	413	206	567	219	337	81	25	1 869
	Mining	5 590	1 248	20 467	1 444	26 873	1 342	2 340	59 848
	Manufacturing	11 943	9 924	5 618	4 101	9 471	1 167	4	46 264
	Construction	66	58	72	10	49	1	3	328
	Wholesale trade	5 904	5 725	6 614	1 649	6 994	228	131	29 326
	Retail trade	624	219	887	36	50	2	2	2 201
	Transport and storage	271	337	222	131	351	15	6	1 764
	Finance and insurance	402	587	136	51	1 116	12	12	2 402
	Property and business services	1 326	311	397	970	1 634	16	1	5 039
	Other(b)	250	263	186	391	188	21	149	2 022
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	62	49	214	16	742	8	2	1 327
	Total goods exporters	26 851	18 927	35 381	9 019	47 805	2 893	2 675	152 390
State contribution (percentage)
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	22.1	11.0	30.3	11.7	18.0	4.3	1.3	100.0
	Mining	9.3	2.1	34.2	2.4	44.9	2.2	3.9	100.0
	Manufacturing	25.8	21.5	12.1	8.9	20.5	2.5	-	100.0
	Construction	20.1	17.8	22.0	3.0	14.9	0.3	0.9	100.0
	Wholesale trade	20.1	19.5	22.6	5.6	23.8	0.8	0.4	100.0
	Retail trade	28.4	9.9	40.3	1.6	2.3	0.1	0.1	100.0
	Transport and storage	15.4	19.1	12.6	7.4	19.9	0.9	0.3	100.0
	Finance and insurance	16.7	24.4	5.7	2.1	46.5	0.5	0.5	100.0
	Property and business services	26.3	6.2	7.9	19.2	32.4	0.3	. .	100.0
	Other(b)	12.4	13.0	9.2	19.3	9.3	1.0	7.4	100.0
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries	4.7	3.7	16.2	1.2	55.9	0.6	0.2	100.0
	Total goods exporters	17.6	12.4	23.2	5.9	31.4	1.9	1.8	100.0
. . not applicable
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Total goods exports includes ACT, re-exports and the value of exports for which state details are confidential.
(b) Includes goods exporters engaged in electricity, gas and water supply; communication services; accommodation, cafes and restaurants; health and community services; cultural and recreational services; personal and other services; education; and government administration and defence industries as well as those newly established businesses yet to confirm their main industry of activity with the Australian Taxation Office.

Table 8 shows the state distribution of goods exporting businesses by industry of exporter and the exporter's main state of business location (please see Explanatory Notes paragraph 9). State of location details are not available for the 3,100 (8%) goods exporters without an ABN.

Of the total goods exporting businesses with an ABN, 37% had their main state of business operations in New South Wales, 28% in Victoria, 17% in Queensland, 10% in Western Australia, 6% in South Australia and 1% in Tasmania.

TABLE 8: GOODS EXPORTERS by INDUSTRY of EXPORTER by MAIN STATE of LOCATION, 2005-06
		NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	TOTAL(a)
Industry of exporter		no.	no.	no.	no.	no.	no.	no.
Goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	222	249	175	193	210	53	1 123
	Mining	97	50	112	30	187	np	483
	Manufacturing	3 414	3 275	1 714	822	906	117	10 358
	Construction	350	243	232	39	149	14	1 042
	Wholesale trade	4 863	3 518	1 836	508	940	49	11 834
	Retail trade	1 533	1 101	820	186	430	33	4 205
	Transport and storage	500	288	198	45	107	12	1 173
	Finance and insurance	363	227	107	46	76	np	827
	Property and business services	1 508	1 053	607	194	410	38	3 886
	Other(b)	1 081	658	449	146	255	28	2 818
	All goods exporters with an ABN	13 931	10 662	6 250	2 209	3 670	351	37 749
Goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries(c)	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	3 100
	Total goods exporters	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	40 849
. . not applicable
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) Total includes ACT, NT and State not specified.
(b) Includes goods exporters engaged in electricity, gas and water supply; communication services; accommodation, cafes and restaurants; health and community services; cultural and recreational services; personal and other services; education; and government administration and defence industries as well as those newly established businesses yet to confirm their main industry of activity with the Australian Taxation Office.
(c) State of business location cannot be determined for exporters without an ABN.

Table 9 shows the state distribution of small goods exporting businesses by industry of exporter and the exporter's main state of business location. 16,837 (85%) of all small goods exporting businesses in 2005-06 had an ABN. Again, state of location details are not available for the 3,061 (15%) small goods exporting businesses without an ABN.

Of the small goods exporting businesses with an ABN, 36% had their main state of business operations in New South Wales, 26% in Victoria, 19% in Queensland, 10% in Western Australia, 6% in South Australia and 1% in Tasmania.

The industries with the highest number of small goods exporters were wholesale trade (5,189), manufacturing (3,840), retail trade (2,299) and property and business services (2,161). The contribution of each industry varied significantly between states with wholesale trade comprising 27% of all small goods exporting businesses in Western Australia and 14% in Tasmania; agriculture, forestry and fishing making up 14% of all small goods exporting businesses in Tasmania and 2% in New South Wales; and property and business services making up 18% of all small goods exporting businesses in Tasmania and 11% in South Australia.

TABLE 9: SMALL GOODS EXPORTERS by INDUSTRY of EXPORTER by MAIN STATE of LOCATION, 2005-06
		NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	TOTAL(a)
Industry of exporter		no.	no.	no.	no.	no.	no.	no.
Small goods exporters with an ABN
	Agriculture, forestry and fishing	112	126	105	107	97	22	583
	Mining	37	13	34	20	60	np	165
	Manufacturing	1 223	1 078	745	345	353	40	3 840
	Construction	168	117	115	14	64	6	488
	Wholesale trade	2 076	1 419	919	249	441	23	5 189
	Retail trade	818	599	464	114	224	23	2 299
	Transport and storage	191	117	92	20	41	np	478
	Finance and insurance	112	90	47	14	29	np	295
	Property and business services	805	572	389	125	215	28	2 161
	Other(b)	540	342	247	79	134	11	1 339
	All small goods exporters with an ABN	6 082	4 473	3 157	1 087	1 658	159	16 837
Small goods exporters without an ABN
	All industries(c)	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	3 061
	Total small goods exporters	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	. .	19 898
. . not applicable
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) Total includes ACT, NT and State not specified.
(b) Includes goods exporters engaged in electricity, gas and water supply; communication services; accommodation, cafes and restaurants; health and community services; cultural and recreational services; personal and other services; education; and government administration and defence industries as well as those newly established businesses yet to confirm their main industry of activity with the Australian Taxation Office.
(c) State of business location cannot be determined for exporters without an ABN.

SERVICES EXPORTERS

As shown in table 1, there were 2,513 services exporters in 2005-06. 26 services exporters with exports of $100m or more contributed 21% by value to total services exports in 2005-06.1,649 businesses exporting services with aggregate exports below $1m represented 66% of total services exporters.

As shown in table 10 the service types with the highest number of exporters in 2005-06 were other business services (1,719), royalties and licence fees (991), computer and information services (854) and personal, cultural and recreational services (698). Numbers of exporters cannot be estimated for travel, insurance, financial and government services as the Survey of International Trade in Services is not used to derive these exports.

The value of exports of travel services of $22.7b accounted for 54% of the total value of services exports in 2005-06. Other significant contributors were transportation services $8.3b (20%) and other business services $4.8b (12%).

Transportation services had the highest value of exports per business, averaging $98.7m per services exporter in 2005-06.

TABLE 10: SERVICES EXPORTERS and VALUE of EXPORTS by TYPE of SERVICE, 2005-06
	Exporters(a)	Value of exports	Contribution to total value	Average service exports per business
	2005-06	2005-06	2005-06	2005-06
Type of Service	no.	$m	%	$m
Transportation services	84	8 293	19.8	99
Travel services	na	22 692	54.1	na
Communication services	480	829	2.0	2
Construction services	259	135	0.3	1
Insurance services	na	704	1.7	na
Financial services	na	1 002	2.4	na
Computer and information services	854	1 168	2.8	1
Royalties and licence fees	991	765	1.8	1
Other business services	1 719	4 828	11.5	3
Personal, cultural and recreational services	698	659	1.6	1
Government services n.i.e.	na	874	2.1	na
Total services exporters(b)	2 513	41 949	100.0	na
na not available
(a) Businesses may export more than one type of service.
(b) Includes value of exports of travel, insurance, financial and government services. Numbers of exporters cannot be estimated for these service types as the Survey of International Trade in Services is not used to measure these exports.