NOVEMBER KEY FIGURES

	September 2008	October 2008	November 2008
	$m	$m	$m
Food and live animals	746	821	784
Beverages and tobacco	179	196	187
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels	245	312	287
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials	3 326	3 456	2 642
Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes	70	53	79
Chemicals and related products, nes	2 106	2 333	2 068
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by material	2 382	2 674	2 624
Machinery and transport equipment	7 472	8 075	7 832
Miscellaneous manufactured articles	2 900	2 929	2 784
Commodities and transactions not classified elsewhere in the SITC	1 505	956	1 630
TOTAL	20 930	21 805	20 916

NOVEMBER KEY POINTS


ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

• In original terms, the November 2008 merchandise imports were $20,916m, a decrease of $889m (4%) on the revised October 2008 merchandise imports of $21,805m.

PRELIMINARY BALANCE OF PAYMENTS GOODS IMPORTS

• Preliminary analysis shows that goods imports (debits) on a balance of payments basis increased by $450m (2%) in seasonally adjusted terms between October and November 2008. Other goods rose $724m (67%) with non monetary gold up $565m (67%) and goods for processing up $152m. Consumption goods rose $124m (2%). Intermediate and other merchandise goods fell $393m (4%) with fuels and lubricants down $791m (24%) and Capital goods fell $5m.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
December 2008	19 January 2009
January 2009	18 February 2009
February 2009	19 March 2009
March 2009	21 April 2009
April 2009	20 May 2009
May 2009	18 June 2009

CHANGES TO MERCHANDISE IMPORTS CLASSIFIED BY INDUSTRY

An information paper, Changes to International Trade in Goods Industry Statistics, July 2009 (cat.no. 5368.0.55.011) will be released on 18 December 2008. The paper briefly advises the timing and implications of the introduction of Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006 (ANZSIC06) in International Trade time series. The paper also describes arrangements for electronically accessing ANZSIC06 and related correspondences.


INTRODUCTION

This publication presents statistics of Australia's merchandise imports classified according to the broadest level (1 digit sections) of the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification. The data are compiled from information submitted by importers or their agents to the Australian Customs Service. For more details see International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 5489.0) on the ABS web site. More detailed merchandise imports data are available on the ABS web site www.abs.gov.au from the Downloads tab of this issue or by contacting the National Information and Referral Service.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Selvi Sekhar on Canberra (02) 6252 5540.