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Australia's international trade in goods and services for the six years to 2000-01 is shown in tables 30.5 (exports or credits) and 30.6 (imports or debits). The tables provide both current price and chain volume measures.

The components of merchandise goods shown in tables 30.5 and 30.6 are defined in terms of groupings of items in the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification Revision 3 (SITC Rev. 3) for credits, and the UN's Classification of Broad Economic Categories for debits.

Chain volume measures of exports and imports remove the effects of inflation. They provide measures, in dollar values, which indicate changes in the actual volume of exports and imports.

The current price value of a transaction may be expressed conceptually as the product of a price and quantity. The value of the transaction in chain volume measures may then be thought of as being derived by substituting, for the current price, the corresponding price in the chosen reference year.

There are, however, many transactions recorded in statistics of international trade in goods and services for which it is not possible to apply such an approach. In such cases it is necessary to make assumptions and approximations (e.g. revaluing by means of the price index which is considered to be most closely related to the commodity involved). The published chain volume measures should be viewed in this light. For more information on chain volume measures refer to Information Paper: Australian National Accounts, Introduction of Chain Volume and Price Indexes (5248.0).

The balance on goods and services recorded a surplus of $0.7b in 2000-01, a turnaround of $15.1b on the deficit recorded in 1999-2000. Goods credits rose $22.7b (23%) to $120.3b, with the largest increases recorded in other mineral fuels (up $4.4b), metal ores and minerals (up $3.5b) and coal (up $2.5b). All of these increases were mostly due to price rises.

Goods debits increased $9.6b (9%) to $120.2b. The most significant increase occurred in intermediate and other merchandise goods (up $5.5b, mainly due to price rises), with fuels and lubricants (up $2.8b) being the largest contributor to the increase. Consumption goods also rose strongly (up $5.0b), with non-industrial transport equipment up $1.9b, due to strong volume increases. Capital goods fell 5% to $25.4b, with decreases recorded in industrial transport equipment (down $1.2b) and civil aircraft (down $0.8b).

Exports and imports of goods, on a recorded trade basis without adjustment for balance of payments purposes, are shown by country in table 30.29.

Table 30.7 presents various price indexes for Australia's trade in goods and services. The implicit price deflators (IPDs) are derived by dividing the current price measures by the corresponding chain volume measures. These IPDs reflect not only price change, but compositional effects from year to year.

Unlike implicit price deflators, chain price indexes measure only the impact of a price change. The chain Laspeyres price index for goods and services credits rose 14.2% in 2000-01 to 114.2. The rise resulted from increasing commodity prices in 2000-01 and a weaker Australian dollar. The chain Laspeyres price index for goods and services debits rose 10.8% in 2000-01 to 110.8.

Australia's terms of trade IPD (derived by dividing the IPD for credits by the IPD for debits) rose by 3.1% in 2000-01, resulting from a 13.5% rise in the IPD for goods and services credits, offset by a 10.2% rise in the IPD for goods and services debits (table 30.7).