Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia

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Balance of payments statistics on current, capital and financial transactions and the international investment position statement

Reference period
March 2021
Released
1/06/2021

Key statistics

  • The current account surplus, seasonally adjusted, rose $2,273m to $18,283m.
  • The capital and financial account deficit rose $4,696m to $15,363m.
  • Australia’s net IIP liability position was $874.6b at 31 March 2021.

Main features

Key figures (a)
 Dec Qtr 2020 ($m)Mar Qtr 2021 ($m)
Balance on current account (b)16,01018,283
Balance on goods and services (b)19,52324,761
Net primary income (b)-2,985-6,048
Capital and financial account-10,667-15,363
International investment position (c)949,995874,641

(a) Trend series is not published from June Quarter 2019
(b) Seasonally adjusted
(c) Levels at end of period

(a) Seasonally adjusted estimates at current prices.

COVID-19 in this publication

Changes in this issue

Current Account

Balance on current account in current prices, seasonally adjusted (a) - March quarter 2021
 Current prices ($m)Current prices change ($m)
Balance on current account18,2832,273
Balance on goods and services24,7615,238
Net goods22,0376,785
Net services2,724-1,547
Net primary income-6,048-3,063
Net secondary income-43097

(a) For sign conventions, see the Concepts section in the Explanatory notes in the Methodology.

Terms of trade

Relationship between IPD, EPI and IPI

Balance on goods and services

In seasonally adjusted chain volume terms, the balance on goods and services was a surplus of $10,000m, a fall of $2,903m on the December quarter 2020 surplus of $12,903m.

The fall in the balance on goods and services surplus, in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms, is expected to detract 0.6 percentage points from the change in the March quarter 2021 chain volume measure of GDP, assuming no significant revision to the GDP chain volume estimate for the December quarter 2020.

(a) Seasonally adjusted, reference year 2018-19.

Exports of goods (credits)

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices, goods credits rose $9,051m (10%) to $103,337m, with volumes up 2% and prices up 7%.

Goods credits, price and volume change, seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2021
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a)(%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Exports of goods9,0519.62.07.4
 Rural goods1,41812.813.8-0.8
 Non-rural goods7,70810.2-0.310.6
 Net exports of goods under merchanting-20-8.6-20.715.1
 Non-monetary gold-55-0.79.9-9.7

(a) Reference year 2018-19 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places

Rural goods

Non-rural goods

Imports of goods (debits)

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices, goods debits rose $2,265m (3%) to $81,300m, with volumes up 3%.

Goods debits, price and volume change, seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2021
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a) (%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Total Goods Imports2,2652.93.3-0.4
 Consumption goods2260.83.1-2.2
 Capital goods-580-2.80.1-3.0
 Intermediate and other merchandise goods2,3228.34.73.4
 Non-monetary gold29718.831.4-9.6

(a) Reference year 2018-19 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places

Consumption goods

Capital goods

Intermediate and other merchandise goods

Services

Services exports, price and volume change, seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2021
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a)(%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Exports of services-1,246-8-8-
 Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others5500--
 Maintenance and repair services n.i.e.8114114-
 Transport1622-
 Travel-1,321-17-171
 Other services461--

- Nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Reference year 2018-19 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places

Services imports, price and volume change, seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2021
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a) (%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Imports of services30037-4
 Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others----
 Maintenance and repair services n.i.e.-7-5-2-4
 Transport201611-5
 Travel-9-6-2-3
 Other services11515-4

- Nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Reference year 2018-19 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places

Income

Primary income deficit widened by $3,063m to $6,048m in the March quarter 2021.

Read more

Capital and Financial Account

The capital and financial account recorded a deficit of $15.4b, mainly driven by the financial account deficit of $15.2. 

The financial account deficit was due to a net outflow of equity of $21.4b and a net inflow of debt of $6.2b.

Capital and financial account
 Jun-20Sep-20Dec-20Mar-21Qtr on Qtr
 ($m)($m)($m)($m)($m)
Capital account-218-165-156-191-35
Acquisitions/disposals of non-produced non-financial assets0024-3-27
Acquisitions/disposals of non-produced non-financial assets credits00290-29
Acquisitions/disposals of non-produced non-financial assets debits00-5-32
Capital transfers-218-165-180-188-8
Capital transfers credits00000
Capital transfers debits-218-165-180-188-8
Financial account-21,375-6,070-10,511-15,172-4,661
Direct investment6,455-5,1593,6758,2934,618
Direct investment assets-1,096-10,120-1,8083,9345,742
Direct investment liabilities7,5514,9615,4834,360-1,123
Portfolio investment-9,27013,648-10,904-32,612-21,708
Portfolio investment assets14,731-41,309-70,326-9,75660,570
Portfolio investment liabilities-24,00154,95759,422-22,857-82,279
Financial derivatives-765-7,335-10,76766511,432
Financial derivatives assets101,16850,01726,72764,80138,074
Financial derivatives liabilities-101,933-57,353-37,494-64,136-26,642
Other investment-40,858-6,9826,70313,9467,243
Other investment assets15,80815,47625,035-2,140-27,175
Other investment liabilities-56,666-22,458-18,33216,08634,418
Reserve assets23,063-242781-5,465-6246
Net errors and omissions2,279-1,820-2,978-2,244734

International Investment Position

Australia's net IIP liability position was $874.6b at 31 March 2021, a decrease of $75.4b on the revised 31 December 2020 position of $950.0b. Australia's net foreign debt liability position decreased $23.2b to $1,138.9b. Australia's net foreign equity asset position increased $52.1b to $264.2b at 31 March 2021.

International investment position, by net foreign equity and net foreign debt
  Position at beginning of periodTransactionsPrice changesExchange rate changesOther adjustmentsPosition at end of period
  ($m)($m)($m)($m)($m)($m)
Net International Investment PositionSep-20935,947-6,070-25,19544,56849949,299
Net International Investment PositionDec-20949,299-10,511-35,20146,552-144949,995
Net International Investment PositionMar-21949,995-15,172-60,305275-152874,641
        
Net Foreign EquitySep-20-173,376-41,705-33,11632,6751,674-213,849
Net Foreign EquityDec-20-213,849-34,333-33,75771,083-1,236-212,091
Net Foreign EquityMar-21-212,091-21,396-27,439-3,894604-264,216
        
Net Foreign DebtSep-201,109,32335,6367,92111,893-1,6251,163,148
Net Foreign DebtDec-201,163,14823,821-1,444-24,5311,0921,162,086
Net Foreign DebtMar-211,162,0866,224-32,8654,169-7561,138,858

Supplementary Information

Value adjustments

Revisions

Economic conditions

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files
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