DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

	October 2007	November 2007	December 2007
	$m	$m	$m
Food and live animals	623	699	633
Beverages and tobacco	160	158	129
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels	268	169	198
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials	2 315	2 394	2 390
Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes	50	54	36
Chemicals and related products, nes	1 890	1 604	1 507
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by material	1 957	1 926	1 575
Machinery and transport equipment	7 128	7 562	6 827
Miscellaneous manufactured articles	2 353	2 277	1 977
Commodities and transactions not classified elsewhere in the SITC	622	569	381
TOTAL	17 364	17 413	15 652

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

• In original terms, the December 2007 merchandise imports were $15,652m, a decrease of $1,761m (10%) on the revised November 2007 merchandise imports of $17,413m.

PRELIMINARY BALANCE OF PAYMENTS GOODS IMPORTS

• Preliminary analysis shows that goods imports (debits) on a balance of payments basis decreased by 0.3% in seasonally adjusted terms between November and December 2007.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
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
June 2008	17 July 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.