APRIL KEY FIGURES

		Feb 2011	Mar 2011	Apr 2011	Mar 11 to Apr 11
		$m	$m	$m	% change
BALANCE ON GOODS AND SERVICES
	Trend estimates	1 670	1 604	1 557	. .
	Seasonally adjusted	-295	1 691	1 597	. .
CREDITS (Exports of goods & services)
	Trend estimates	24 731	24 969	25 217	1
	Seasonally adjusted	22 842	25 144	25 282	1
DEBITS (Imports of goods & services)
	Trend estimates	23 061	23 366	23 660	1
	Seasonally adjusted	23 138	23 452	23 685	1
. . not applicable

Balance on Goods and Services

APRIL KEY POINTS


BALANCE ON GOODS AND SERVICES

• The trend estimate of the balance on goods and services was a surplus of $1,557m in April 2011, a fall of $47m on the surplus in March 2011.
• In seasonally adjusted terms, the balance on goods and services was a surplus of $1,597m in April 2011, a fall of $94m on the surplus in March 2011.

CREDITS (EXPORTS OF GOODS & SERVICES)

• In seasonally adjusted terms, goods and services credits rose $138m (1%) to $25,282m. Non-rural goods rose $186m (1%), rural goods rose $141m (6%) and net exports of goods under merchanting rose $20m (77%). Non-monetary gold fell $264m (20%). Services credits rose $55m (1%).

DEBITS (IMPORTS OF GOODS & SERVICES)

• In seasonally adjusted terms, goods and services debits rose $233m (1%) to $23,685m. Capital goods rose $489m (12%). Consumption goods fell $159m (3%), intermediate and other merchandise goods fell $125m (1%) and non-monetary gold fell $32m (8%). Services debits rose $60m (1%).

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
May 2011	5 July 2011
June 2011	3 August 2011
July 2011	8 September 2011
August 2011	4 October 2011
September 2011	8 November 2011
October 2011	12 December 2011

REVISIONS

Revisions have been made to incorporate the latest data relating to international merchandise trade. The international trade in goods and services on a balance of payments basis, goods debits series have been revised for the 6 months to March 2011. There were no other revisions to the balance of payments basis series in original terms.

Table 17 summarises revisions to goods and services on a balance of payments basis, in original current price terms, since the last issue of this publication. In original terms, the revisions have:

• decreased the surplus on goods and services for the 9 months to March 2011 by $1,020m.

The revised goods debits data aligns with the data published in the March quarter 2011 issues of Balance of Payments and International Investment Position (cat. no. 5302.0) and Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product (cat. no. 5206.0).

Seasonally adjusted and trend series have been revised due to the incorporation of the revisions and estimates for the latest month.


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Following advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the description of 'Myanmar' has been changed to 'Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar)'. This change has been included in time series spreadsheet tables 14a, 14b, 36a to 36j and 37a to 37h and in the country data for the complete merchandise trade time series (i.e. data from January 1988). The ordering of countries has been affected for all country tables.


IRON ORE AND COAL PRICES

Adjustments have been made to the value of the 'metal ores and minerals' component in the balance of payments series. See the section Commodity prices adjustment for details.


RELATED RELEASES

Related recent and upcoming releases are detailed in the Related releases section.


IMPACT OF NATURAL DISASTERS

The collection and processing of data included in this publication were not disrupted by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. See the section Impact of natural disasters for details.


INQUIRIES

For further information contact Selvi Sekhar on Canberra (02) 6252 5540 for Goods, and Lee Taylor on Canberra (02) 6252 6377 for Services.