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DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

			Sep Qtr 06 to Dec Qtr 06	Dec Qtr 05 to Dec Qtr 06
			%	%
Sales of goods & services (Chain vol. meas.)
	Manufacturing
		Trend	0.9	1.0
		Seasonally Adjusted	1.8	1.8
	Wholesale trade
		Trend	0.5	1.9
		Seasonally Adjusted	1.8	2.8
Inventories (Chain vol. meas.)
	Trend		-0.7	-2.1
	Seasonally Adjusted		0.1	-1.7
Company gross operating profits
	Trend		2.1	9.0
	Seasonally Adjusted		2.5	9.1
Wages and salaries
	Seasonally Adjusted		2.7	7.6

Inventories (volume terms), Trend estimates - Quarterly change

Company gross operating profits (current prices), Trend estimates - Quarterly change

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


CHAIN VOLUME ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for inventories decreased 0.7% in the December quarter 2006. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 0.1% this quarter following two consecutive quarters of falls. Increases in Mining, Manufacturing and Retail industries were partially offset by a decrease in Wholesale inventories.
• The trend estimate for Manufacturing sales of goods and services increased 0.9% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 1.8% this quarter following an increase of 0.8% in the previous quarter.
• The trend estimate for Wholesale trade's sales of goods and services increased 0.5% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 1.8% following relatively flat growth in the previous quarter.

• The trend estimate for company gross operating profits increased 2.1% in the December quarter 2006. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 2.5%, the growth rate increasing in comparison to the previous quarter.
• The trend estimate for wages and salaries increased 1.7% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 2.7% this quarter, the growth rate increasing in comparison to the previous four consecutive quarters.

COMPARISON BETWEEN COMPANY GROSS OPERATING PROFITS AND GROSS OPERATING SURPLUS

Price changes have had an impact on the value of inventories held by Australian businesses this quarter. An inventories valuation adjustment (IVA) is applied in the calculation of the gross operating surplus of private non-financial corporations (GOS) estimate in the Australian National Accounts. As prices for inventories have risen by less in the December quarter than in the September quarter, growth in GOS will be higher after the application of the IVA. The IVA for the December quarter is $408m which is $392m lower than September quarter IVA of $800m. No adjustment is made to the company gross operating profits (CGOP) estimate in this publication and, as a result, users should exercise caution when comparing the two series. It should also be noted that there are other differences between the two series. In particular, changes are made to GOS when annual benchmarks are applied and slightly different seasonal factors apply to the two series. Given this, while CGOP movements are an appropriate indicator for GOS, it is not the case that the two series will have equivalent seasonally adjusted movements from quarter to quarter.

REVISIONS IN THIS ISSUE

These data incorporate recently available information about the outputs of a number of companies with significant activity across more than one industry. There has been some reallocation of data between some industries (principally Mining, Manufacturing and Wholesale) across the key items although the total estimates are not affected.

There have also been revisions to the Property and Business Industry in this publication. An entity that was previously out of scope, has now been included due its significant activity in the industry and backcast to March quarter 2001. As a result the following series have been revised: Sales of Goods and Services, Company Gross Operating Profits and the related profits measures. These revisions have not significantly altered the movements for these series.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Fiona Cotsell on Sydney (02) 9268 4241.

ANALYSIS BY INDUSTRY


FEATURED SERIES

The following graphs and commentary refer to seasonally adjusted and trend estimates of: sales of goods and services ('Sales') and inventories ('Inv.') in volume terms; and wages and salaries ('Wages') and company gross operating profits ('CGOP') in current price terms.

TOTAL ALL INDUSTRIES

In current price terms, the trend estimate for company gross operating profits increased 2.1% in the December quarter 2006. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 2.5% this quarter, after weaker growth of 0.5% in the September quarter 2006. In current price terms, the trend estimate for wages and salaries increased 1.7% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate increased 2.7%, following four consecutive quarters of growth rates lower than 2.0%.