MARCH KEY FIGURES

			Dec Qtr 10 to Mar Qtr 11	Mar Qtr 10 to Mar Qtr 11
			%	%
Sales of goods and services (Chain volume measures)
	Manufacturing
		Trend	-0.2	(a)na
		Seasonally Adjusted	-0.7	-8.8
	Wholesale trade
		Trend	1.0	-1.0
		Seasonally Adjusted	1.3	-0.5
Inventories (Chain volume measures)
	Trend		0.3	0.3
	Seasonally Adjusted		0.4	0.2
Company gross operating profits
	Trend		-0.8	(a)na
	Seasonally Adjusted		-2.0	9.5
Wages and salaries
	Seasonally Adjusted		1.4	7.7
na not available
(a) See paragraph 20 of Technical Notes for more information

Inventories (volume terms), Trend estimates

Company gross operating profits, Trend estimates

MARCH KEY POINTS


CHAIN VOLUME ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for inventories rose 0.3% in the March quarter 2011. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.4% this quarter.
• The trend estimate for Manufacturing sales of goods and services fell 0.2% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate fell 0.7%.
• The trend estimate for Wholesale trade sales of goods and services rose 1.0% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 1.3%.

CURRENT PRICE ESTIMATES

• The seasonally adjusted estimate for company gross operating profits fell 2.0% in the March quarter 2011.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for wages and salaries rose 1.4% in the March quarter 2011.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2011	5 September 2011
September 2011	5 December 2011
December 2011	5 March 2012
March 2012	4 June 2012

IMPACT OF THE FLOODS

Heavy rain and flooding occurred in Queensland and other states in late 2010 and early 2011. The December quarter issue of this publication presented the first significant economic impact of these floods. This current issue presents the continued impact. There were no significant data reporting issues this quarter.


COMPARISON BETWEEN COMPANY GROSS OPERATING PROFITS AND GROSS OPERATING SURPLUS

Valuation 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. The IVA for the March quarter 2011 is $2,796m which is $3,782m higher than the December quarter 2010 IVA of (-$986m).

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 CGOP and GOS. It should 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, the two series will not have equivalent seasonally adjusted movements from quarter to quarter.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Didier Rivet on Sydney (02) 9268 4900.