MARCH KEY FIGURES

			Dec Qtr 11 to Mar Qtr 12	Mar Qtr 11 to Mar Qtr 12
			%	%
Sales of goods and services (Chain volume measures)
	Manufacturing
		Trend	-0.4	-0.8
		Seasonally Adjusted	0.1	-0.6
	Wholesale trade
		Trend	1.2	5.3
		Seasonally Adjusted	1.2	4.6
Inventories (Chain volume measures)
	Trend		0.8	2.7
	Seasonally Adjusted		0.9	3.4
Company gross operating profits
	Trend		-3.6	-2.6
	Seasonally Adjusted		-4.0	-0.5
Wages and salaries
	Seasonally Adjusted		2.1	7.7

Inventories (volume terms), Trend estimates

Company gross operating profits, Trend estimates

MARCH KEY POINTS


CHAIN VOLUME ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for inventories rose 0.8% in the March quarter 2012. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.9% this quarter.
• The trend estimate for Manufacturing sales of goods and services fell 0.4% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.1%.
• The trend estimate for Wholesale trade sales of goods and services rose 1.2% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 1.2%.

CURRENT PRICE ESTIMATES

• The seasonally adjusted estimate for company gross operating profits fell 4.0% in the March quarter 2012.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for wages and salaries rose 2.1% in the March quarter 2012.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2012	3 September 2012
September 2012	3 December 2012
December 2012	4 March 2013
March 2013	3 June 2013

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 2012 is -$942m which is $732m lower than the December quarter 2011 IVA of -$210m.

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.

REVISIONS

Updated information from survey respondents has resulted in revisions to September quarter 2011 and December quarter 2011. These revisions apply to income from sales of goods and services in Manufacturing, Primary metal and metal product manufacturing, and Queensland.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Paul Slater on Sydney (02) 9268 4581.