MARCH KEY FIGURES

	January 2008	February 2008	March 2008
	$m	$m	$m
Food and live animals	664	641	579
Beverages and tobacco	115	115	111
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels	226	182	190
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials	2 730	2 628	2 818
Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes	50	59	28
Chemicals and related products, nes	1 809	1 733	1 856
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by material	1 920	1 776	1 644
Machinery and transport equipment	6 495	6 628	7 147
Miscellaneous manufactured articles	2 047	2 208	1 797
Commodities and transactions not classified elsewhere in the SITC	812	665	589
TOTAL	16 868	16 635	16 759

MARCH KEY POINTS


ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

• In original terms, the March 2008 merchandise imports were $16,759m, an increase of $124m (1%) on the revised February 2008 merchandise imports of $16,635m.

PRELIMINARY BALANCE OF PAYMENTS GOODS IMPORTS

• Preliminary analysis shows that goods imports (debits) on a balance of payments basis increased by 1% in seasonally adjusted terms between February and March 2008.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
April 2008	19 May 2008
May 2008	18 June 2008
June 2008	17 July 2008
July 2008	19 August 2008
August 2008	17 September 2008
September 2008	20 October 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 Selvi Sekhar on Canberra (02) 6252 5540.