NOVEMBER KEY FIGURES

	September 2007	October 2007	November 2007
	$m	$m	$m
Food and live animals	608	623	699
Beverages and tobacco	123	160	158
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels	195	268	169
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials	2 042	2 329	2 385
Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes	38	50	54
Chemicals and related products, nes	1 624	1 891	1 604
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by material	1 654	1 957	1 927
Machinery and transport equipment	6 660	7 132	7 580
Miscellaneous manufactured articles	2 133	2 353	2 278
Commodities and transactions not classified elsewhere in the SITC	482	622	574
TOTAL	15 559	17 383	17 428

NOVEMBER KEY POINTS


ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

• In original terms, the November 2007 merchandise imports were $17,428m, an increase of $45m (0.3%) on the revised October 2007 merchandise imports of $17,383m.

PRELIMINARY BALANCE OF PAYMENTS GOODS IMPORTS

• Preliminary analysis shows that goods imports (debits) on a balance of payments basis increased by 2% in seasonally adjusted terms between October and November 2007.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
December 2007	17 January 2008
January 2008	19 February 2008
February 2008	19 March 2008
March 2008	17 April 2008
April 2008	19 May 2008
May 2008	18 June 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 Olivia Lam on Canberra (02) 6252 7406.