The value of Australian exports hit a new all-time monthly high in April, edging over the $50 billion mark for the first time ever.
Helped by a drop in the value of imports in the month, the record export figure of $50.378 billion saw the trade surplus rise back over $10 billion for the first time since January.
That was up from $49.899 billion in March.
Australian Bureau of statistics figures showed the surplus increased $757 million to $10.495 billion (seasonally adjusted) in April thanks to a rise of nearly $480 million in the value of exports of Travel services and other mineral fuels.
There was a 3.3% rise in rural goods exports, driven by an 8.3% increase in cereal (wheat) shipments.
Imports fell $278 million in the month thanks to a fall in shipments of processed industrial supplies and non-industrial transport equipment (autos), according to the ABS data. Imports of consumption goods fell 1.1%.
That represents a slowdown from the 12% growth in the value of imports in the March quarter, according to Wednesday’s national accounts.
April’s surplus was also $1.2 billion above the $9.278 billion for the same month in 2021, while exports rose $9.66 billion or nearly 24% in the 12 months.
But the value of imports grew faster – by 27% or $8.42 billion as the cost of oil, petrol, cars and the like jumped sharply.
The big influence here is the surge in the value of oil and petrol imports over the year to April – from $2.6 billion a year ago to close to $4.8 billion in April of this year.
That’s a jump of 85%, and much faster than the roughly 64% jump in the average price of Brent crude, the global marker oil type – from $US64.81 a barrel to $US104.58 in April, 2022. It certainly helps explain the rise in Australian Consumer Price Inflation in the year to March – from 1.1% to 5.1%.
Surprisingly though, the April, 2022 value of nearly $4.8 billion was down roughly $300 million from the March figure of close to $5.1 billion. The March and April figures of this year are the two highest ever monthly totals for the value of oil and petrol imports.
The surge in global oil prices has had a big knock-on effect on the value of chemical imports as well (something forgotten by many people). They jumped 44% from $2.95 billion to $4.26 billion in April of this year.
That increase is one of those sources of rising cost pressures that become embedded across the entire economy. That will add to the Reserve Bank’s inflation worries.
Cars imports have remained high over the past year or so – in April, 2021 the value of imports was $4.084 billion, but this had fallen to $3.562 billion in April of this year.
