Australian System of National Accounts

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Annual estimates of key economic measures, including GDP, consumption, investment, income, capital stock, productivity and balance sheets

Reference period
2020-21 financial year
Released
29/10/2021

Key statistics

  • The Australian economy grew 1.5% in chain volume terms in 2020-21
  • Labour productivity rose 1.2%
  • The household saving ratio rose to 15.2%
  • National net worth rose $2.4 trillion to $15.3 trillion

2020-21 key figures

  2016-172017-182018-192019-202020-21
Chain volume GDP and related measures (a)
 GDP2.32.92.10.01.5
 GDP per capita (b)0.61.30.5-1.50.9
 Gross value added market sector (c)2.13.01.6-0.80.6
 Real net national disposable income5.33.03.51.25.5
Productivity
 GDP per hour worked0.80.2-0.11.51.2
 Gross value added per hour worked market sector (c)1.40.30.01.81.2
 Real unit labour costs-4.00.1-0.7-1.7-2.9
Prices
 GDP chain price index3.81.93.31.92.7
 Terms of trade14.31.95.70.810.3
Current price measures
 GDP6.14.85.61.84.3
Saving and wealth
 Household saving ratio (%)5.44.85.512.315.2
 National net saving ($ billions)73.377.1101.9127.3175.0
 National net worth ($ trillions)11.611.912.112.915.3

Table shows change on preceding financial year, except for the saving and wealth measures.
a. Reference year for chain volume measures and real income measures is 2019-20.
b. Population estimates are as published in National, state and territory population (cat. no. 3101.0) and ABS projections.
c. ANZSIC divisions A to N, R and S. See Glossary - Market sector, in Methodology.

Articles and other information

This edition of the Australian System National Accounts includes the following article:

An information paper on revisions to GDP has also been released: Analysis of Revisions to Gross Domestic Product

Revisions and changes

Revisions in this issue

This issue of the Australian System of National Accounts (cat. no. 5204.0) incorporates the 2019-20 annual supply and use tables. For information on the role of supply and use tables in the national accounts, see the 2019-20 supply and use tables section below. The 1.5% rise in GDP for 2020-21 is a 0.1 percentage point upward revision from the result published in June quarter 2021. There are also revisions to component series arising from the 2019-20 benchmarks, new data and data confrontation to balance the accounts.

2019-20 supply and use tables

The ABS compiles supply and use (SU) tables to generate balanced annual estimates of GDP. The SU tables are compiled from 1994-95 to 2019-20 and result in the annual statistical discrepancies for this period being zero. Years prior to 1994-95 have a non-zero statistical discrepancy because SU tables have not been compiled, and so the data remain unbalanced. Similarly, estimates for the latest year (in this case 2020-21) have a statistical discrepancy because SU tables have not yet been constructed.

The supply table measures the goods and services produced in Australia and imports, while the use table measures the use of goods and services for intermediate consumption, final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and exports. Domestic supply and intermediate consumption are cross-classified by industry and product categories, while the other components are simply classified by product category. The use table also provides information on the generation of income from production for each industry.

A large number of data sources are used to compile the national accounts, such as business activity surveys, household expenditure surveys, investment surveys, foreign trade statistics and government finance statistics. Revisions have been made to SU tables in 2017-18 and 2018-19, resulting from new and updated information received from these sources. Additionally, the SU tables have been revised in line with the updates made though the targeted historical revisions applied to the Australian National Accounts, see Improved estimates of the annual national accounts: Results of the 2021 historical revisions for further information. 

The September quarter 2021 issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, to be released on 1 December 2021, will also incorporate these revisions.  

The SU tables are available for download on the Data Explorer website (https://explore.data.abs.gov.au/). Data from the SU tables are used to construct the Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables. These products present structural detail underlying the Australian economy and provide weights for price indexes.

Changes to publication tables

This issue of Australian System of National Accounts contains changes to publication table 16. Selected analytical series. Additional series have been added to this table, including analytical breakdowns of household final consumption expenditure. Series identifiers have been maintained for continuing series. If you require further information on the changes, please contact national.accounts@abs.gov.au.

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Data downloads

This issue of Australian System of National Accounts contains changes to publication table 16. Selected analytical series. For further information regarding these changes, see the revisions and changes section above.

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5204.0.

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