OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

	August 2007	September 2007	October 2007
	$m	$m	$m
Food and live animals	655	608	623
Beverages and tobacco	148	123	160
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels	197	195	268
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials	2 212	2 031	2 342
Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes	44	38	50
Chemicals and related products, nes	1 771	1 624	1 890
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by material	1 891	1 655	1 957
Machinery and transport equipment	6 989	6 662	7 133
Miscellaneous manufactured articles	2 180	2 133	2 357
Commodities and transactions not classified elsewhere in the SITC	794	482	623
TOTAL	16 881	15 550	17 403

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

• In original terms, the October 2007 merchandise imports were $17,403m, an increase of $1,853m (11.9%) on the revised September 2007 merchandise imports of $15,550m.

PRELIMINARY BALANCE OF PAYMENTS GOODS IMPORTS

• Preliminary analysis shows that goods imports (debits) on a balance of payments basis increased by 2% in seasonally adjusted terms between September and October 2007.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
November 2007	18 December 2007
December 2007	17 January 2008
January 2008	19 February 2008
February 2008	19 March 2008
March 2008	17 April 2008
April 2008	19 May 2008

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 Details 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 Olivia Lam on Canberra (02) 6252 7406.