Australia Economic Profile
Australia Economic & Trade Profile
Australia, with an estimated GDP (nominal) of US$1.33 trillion is the 13th largest economy of the world. The country ranks 21st in the world with per capita GDP of US$52,950. The economy is dominated by the services sector, which contributes 71.2% to the GDP, followed by Industry 25.3% and Agriculture 3.6%. Before the pandemic, Australian economy had been growing consistently for the last three decades, a record for uninterrupted growth in the developed world. However, the recent Covid-19 crisis has interrupted this growth trend and the GDP is expected to contract by around 6 per cent in 2020, but then grow by around 5 per cent over 2021.
Australia has an open market with minimal restrictions on import of goods and services, which has made the economy highly productive and dynamic. Australia maintains FTAs, under bilateral and multilateral arrangements, with New Zealand, Singapore, USA, Thailand, Chile, ASEAN, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Peru, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Mexico and Vietnam. Australia has concluded an Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which came into force on 5 July 2020. A comprehensive regional Free Trade Agreement (FTA) covering goods, services and investment between Australia, New Zealand and nine Pacific island countries, named Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) Plus, has been negotiated but yet to come into force as of August 2020, pending ratification by a few signatory states. Australia is currently negotiating FTAs with EU, GCC and India, with a prospective negotiation to commence with UK also.
Australia remains a significant exporter of natural resources, energy and food items, drawing mainly from its extensive reserves of natural resources i.e. coal, iron, copper, gold, natural gas, uranium, and renewable energy sources and an efficient agricultural production base. Australia’s foreign trade profile is unusual amongst the developed economies – it exports mainly natural resources and agriculture commodities, and imports manufactured goods. Out of the total merchandise exports of US$ 273 billion in 2019, the top five items were iron ores and concentrates 24.2%, coal 16.3%, natural gas 13.3%, gold 6% and crude petroleum 2.4%. The agriculture commodities and its processed goods contribute 11.4%. The major export destinations were China 32.8%, Japan 9.0%, South Korea 5.0%, UK 3.8%, USA 3.7% and India 3.3%.
Out of the total merchandise imports of US$ 214 billion, the major import products were refined petroleum 8.2%, passenger motor vehicles 6.9%, crude petroleum 4.0%, telecom equipment 3.8% and data processing machines 3.1%. The major import sources were China 25.5%, USA 11.7%, Japan 7.0%, Thailand 4.7% and Germany 4.7%.
Australia remains net importer of services with US$93 billion exports and US$98 billion imports. Services sector accounts for around 22% of Australia’s total exports directly, and 40% if the value of Australian services added to the goods exports is also taken into account. Australia’s five largest services exports are education-related travel services, recreational travel services, professional services, business travel services and financial services.
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