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MARCH KEY FIGURES

	January 2006	February 2006	March 2006
	$m	$m	$m
Food and live animals	484	457	483
Beverages and tobacco	87	80	88
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels	149	142	185
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials	1 809	1 978	1 988
Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes	35	24	30
Chemicals and related products, nes	1 487	1 564	1 638
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by material	1 460	1 381	1 556
Machinery and transport equipment	5 569	5 052	6 283
Miscellaneous manufactured articles	1 739	1 608	1 770
Commodities and transactions not classified elsewhere in the SITC	543	403	457
TOTAL	13 364	12 688	14 479

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 the ABS publication International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 5489.0) which is accessible on the ABS web site. More detailed merchandise imports data are available from AusStats or by contacting the National Information and Referral Service.

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 February and March 2006.

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

The April 2006 issue of this publication is expected to be released on 16 May 2006 and the May 2006 issue is expected to be released on 19 June 2006. However, due to the implementation in June 2006 of a new ABS merchandise trade processing system, the release of the June and July 2006 issues have been postponed to 27 July and 22 August 2006 respectively to allow additional quality assurance to be undertaken.