Australia's External Trade Likely improved in August

Quotes from Standard Chartered:

-The Australian Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to release August external trade data on 2 October. We forecast the trade deficit to have narrowed to AUD 1.2bn despite still-weak commodity exports.

-Prices of iron ore and coal, which account for more than 50% of exports, have dropped significantly since the beginning of the year on rising supply and lower demand. Iron ore and coal prices are likely to remain low for the rest of 2014.

-The drop in exports hurt Q2 GDP growth, which slowed to 3.1% y/y from 3.5% in Q1. While we expect commodity export volumes to remain strong, growth is likely to slow relative to Q1 and lower prices will mean less support.

Published: 2014-10-01 08:03:00 UTC+00

Australia's External Trade Likely improved in August