MARCH KEY FIGURES

			Dec Qtr 08 to Mar Qtr 09	Mar Qtr 08 to Mar Qtr 09
			%	%
Sales of goods & services (Chain vol. meas.)
	Manufacturing
		Trend	-2.4	-5.9
		Seasonally Adjusted	-2.8	-6.8
	Wholesale trade
		Trend	-1.6	-3.8
		Seasonally Adjusted	0.0	-3.2
Inventories (Chain vol. meas.)
	Trend		-0.9	-0.6
	Seasonally Adjusted		-1.2	-1.1
Company gross operating profits
	Trend		-5.0	9.1
	Seasonally Adjusted		-7.2	6.8
Wages and salaries
	Seasonally Adjusted		-0.4	3.9

Inventories (volume terms), Trend estimates - Quarterly change

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

MARCH KEY POINTS


CHAIN VOLUME ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for inventories fell 0.9% in the March quarter 2009. The seasonally adjusted estimate fell 1.2% this quarter.
• The trend estimate for Manufacturing sales of goods and services fell 2.4% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate fell 2.8%.
• The trend estimate for Wholesale trade sales of goods and services fell 1.6% this quarter. The seasonally adjusted estimate was relatively unchanged.

CURRENT PRICE ESTIMATES

• The seasonally adjusted estimate for company gross operating profits fell 7.2% in the March quarter 2009.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate for wages and salaries fell 0.4% in the March quarter 2009.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2009	31 August 2009
September 2009	30 November 2009
December 2009	1 March 2010
March 2010	31 May 2010

INTERPRETING TREND ESTIMATES

The trend series in this publication should be interpreted with caution as the underlying behaviour of a number of series may have been impacted by global economic conditions and the Federal Government's Economic Security Package implemented in December 2008.


SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT CHANGES

For some selected series for this issue forward factor seasonal adjustment has replaced the usual concurrent seasonal adjustment. The forward seasonal factors have been projected from March quarter 2008. This has been done because of the uncertain influence of the global financial crisis on the seasonal pattern of the original estimates. This change in seasonal adjustment approach will be reviewed next quarter.


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 in the March quarter, growth in GOS will be lower after the application of the IVA. The IVA for the March quarter 2009 is $130m which is $4,180m lower than the December quarter IVA of $4,310m. 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 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.