Australia Feb trade surplus jumps to A$3.6bn

CANBERRA: Australia’s posted its second-highest nominal trade surplus on record for February supported by commodity prices. The country’s seasonally adjusted trade surplus was A$3.57bn ($2.71bn) for the second month of the year, well above economists’ estimates of A$1.9bn and bringing it close to December’s record of A$3.7bn (previously A$3.51). The February figure shows a rebound from January’s A$1.5bn (previously $1.3bn) surplus.

Andrew Hanlan at Westpac said imports were the “major swing factor” over the past two months. Imports jumped 3.7 per cent, or A$1.1bn, in January, chewing into the surplus for that month, but then retreated 5.3 per cent, or A$1.6bn, and leaving imports down 1.8 per cent over the two-month period. Paul Dales, chief Australia and New Zealand economist for Capital Economics warns the trade surplus may have peaked as commodity prices have edged lower. He predicts net trade may have subtracted 0.4 percentage points from real gross domestic product growth in the first quarter and expects a 0.5 per cent quarter on quarter rise in GDP for the first three months of the year. The Australian dollar was trading flat at $0.7608, however the data saw the currency swing from a loss of as much as 0.2 per cent to a gain of 0.1 per cent.

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