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 2022
Released
31/05/2022

Key statistics

  • The current account surplus, seasonally adjusted, fell $5,703m to $7,532m.
  • The capital and financial account deficit fell $8,406m to $2,921m.
  • Australia’s net international investment liability position was $821,322m at 31 March 2022.

Main features

Key figures (a)
 Dec 21 ($m)Mar 22 ($m)
Balance on current account (b)13,2357,532
Balance on goods and services (b)29,14828,229
Net primary income (b)-15,167-20,025
Capital and financial account-11,327-2,921
International investment position (c)809,742821,322

(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 2022
   Dec 21 ($m)Mar 22 ($m)Dec 21 to Mar 22 ($m)
Balance on current account13,2357,532-5,703
Balance on goods and services29,14828,229-919
Net goods30,71030,872162
Net Services-1,562-2,644-1,082
Net primary income-15,167-20,025-4,858
Net secondary income-747-67176

(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 $560m, a fall of $8,917m on the revised December quarter 2021 surplus of $9,477m.

The fall in the balance on goods and services surplus of $8.9 billion (seasonally adjusted chain volume measure) is expected to detract 1.7 percentage points from the March quarter 2022 GDP quarterly movement. 

(a) Seasonally adjusted, reference year 2019-20.

Exports of goods (credits)

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices, goods credits rose $11,384m (9.3%) to $133,523m, with volumes down 1.3% and prices up 10.8%.

Goods credits, price and volume change - seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2022
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a) (%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Exports of goods11,3849.3-1.310.8
 Rural goods1,1067.1-2.09.2
 Non-rural goods10,71410.7-0.411.1
 Net exports of goods under merchanting(c)-4-4.1-20.921.2
 Non-monetary gold(c)-432-6.6-10.84.8

(a) Reference year 2019-20 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places
(c) This component is not seasonally adjusted

Rural goods

Non-rural goods

Imports of goods (debits)

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices, goods debits rose $11,222m (12.3%) to $102,651m, with volumes up 8.3% and prices up 3.7%.

Goods debits, price and volume change - seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2022
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a) (%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Total Goods Imports11,22212.38.33.7
 Consumption goods4,86017.514.92.3
 Capital goods1,3666.35.01.2
 Intermediate and other merchandise goods4,70411.65.16.2
 Non-monetary gold(c)29120.714.95.0

(a) Reference year 2019-20 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places
(c) This component is not seasonally adjusted

Consumption goods

Capital goods

Intermediate and other merchandise goods

Services

Services exports, price and volume change - seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2022
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a) (%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Exports of services4183.02.30.6
 Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others(c)-5-100.0--
 Maintenance and repair services n.i.e.(c)-3-30.0-30.00.6
 Transport838.410.5-1.9
 Travel3798.06.91.2
 Other services-35-0.4-1.00.6

- nil (including null cells)
(a) Reference year 2019-20 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places
(c) This component is not seasonally adjusted

Services imports, price and volume change - seasonally adjusted - March quarter 2022
  Current prices ($m)Current prices (%)Chain volume measures (a) (%)Implicit price deflators (a)(b)(%)
Imports of services1,5009.66.82.6
 Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others(c)----
 Maintenance and repair services n.i.e.(c)-26-20.5-21.92.0
 Transport1,26721.134.3-9.9
 Travel9723.321.11.7
 Other services1621.8-0.22.0

- nil (including null cells)
(a) Reference year 2019-20 = 100
(b) Movements in indexes are based on data to four decimal places
(c) This component is not seasonally adjusted

Income

The primary income deficit rose by $4,858m to $20,025m in the March quarter 2022.

(a) Trend series is not published from June Quarter 2019

(b) Seasonally adjusted

Primary income credits

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices, income to residents (credits) rose $319m (1.5%) to $20,998m. The main components contributing to this rise were:

  • Direct investment assets - income on equity and investment fund shares; up $750m (8.8%)
  • Portfolio investment assets - interest; down $308m (17.8%)
  • Portfolio investment assets - investment income on equity and investment fund shares; down $180m (2.0%)

Primary income debits

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices income to non-residents (debits) rose $5,177m (14.4%) to $41,023m. The main components contributing to this rise were:

  • Portfolio investment liabilities - investment income on equity and investment fund shares; up $2,732m (48.6%)
  • Direct investment liabilities - income on equity and investment fund shares; up $2,661m (12.0%)
  • Portfolio investment liabilities - interest; down $327m (6.6%)

Secondary income

In seasonally adjusted terms at current prices, the net secondary income deficit fell $76m to $671m in the March quarter 2022. 

Capital and Financial Account

The capital and financial account recorded a deficit of $2.9b during the March 2022 quarter, mainly driven by the financial account deficit of $2.7b. 

The financial account deficit narrowed due to a $3.6b net outflow of debt partially offset by a $0.9b net inflow of equity.

 

Capital and financial account
   Jun-21Sep-21Dec-21Mar-22Qtr on Qtr
   ($m)($m)($m)($m)($m)
Capital account-260-160-41-188-147
 Acquisitions/disposals of non-produced non-financial assets-4251390-139
  Acquisitions/disposals of non-produced non-financial assets credits951420-142
  Acquisitions/disposals of non-produced non-financial assets debits-510-303
 Capital transfers-218-165-180-188-8
  Capital transfers credits00000
  Capital transfers debits-218-165-180-188-8
Financial account-25,965-15,443-11,286-2,7338,553
 Direct investment5,498-8,43013,564-28,831-42,395
  Direct investment assets3,070-17,149-9,658-110,823-101,165
  Direct investment liabilities2,4298,71923,22281,99258,770
 Portfolio investment-33,335-1,942-17,68636,55154,237
  Portfolio investment assets-49,559-39,343-61,344-28,20133,143
  Portfolio investment liabilities16,22437,40143,65764,75321,096
 Financial derivatives2,469222-7,476-3,7353,741
  Financial derivatives assets51,70745,90435,17942,6017,422
  Financial derivatives liabilities-49,238-45,682-42,656-46,336-3,680
 Other investment-1,35112,0852,029-6,119-8,148
  Other investment assets-7,123-24,185-3,496-23,339-19,843
  Other investment liabilities5,77236,2705,52517,22011,695
 Reserve assets754-17,378-1,717-5991,118
 Net errors and omissions-1,347-2,9521,552-4,817-6,369

International Investment Position

Australia's net IIP liability position was $821.3b at 31 March 2022, an increase of $11.6b on the revised 31 December 2021 figure of $809.7b. Australia's net foreign equity asset position decreased $88.4b to $307.4b at 31 March 2022. Australia's net foreign debt liability position decreased $76.8b to $1,128.7b.

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-21896,778-15,44312,073-13,778263879,893
Net International Investment PositionDec-21879,893-11,286-65,5598,560-1,867809,742
Net International Investment PositionMar-22809,742-2,733-18,35741,993-9,323821,322
        
Net Foreign EquitySep-21-295,741-20,23214,486-27,173-541-329,200
Net Foreign EquityDec-21-329,200-34,396-42,47511,916-1,655-395,810
Net Foreign EquityMar-22-395,81091638,18558,986-9,672-307,395
        
Net Foreign DebtSep-211,192,5194,789-2,41313,3958041,209,093
Net Foreign DebtDec-211,209,09323,110-23,083-3,356-2121,205,552
Net Foreign DebtMar-221,205,552-3,649-56,541-16,9943491,128,716
        

Supplementary Information

Value adjustments

Revisions

Economic conditions

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5302.0.

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