Australia’s economy sparkles

Australia has chalked up substantial improvements in its current account, retail trade and home building approvals.

These all showed up in figures that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released.

The bureau reported a $9.7 billion improvement in the nation’s goods and services trade in the June quarter of this year.

That left Australia with a $6.5 billion trade surplus for the quarter, a strong improvement on the deficit of $3.2 billion seen in the March quarter.

All of these figures are seasonally adjusted.

The bureau also reported a seasonally adjusted rise of 0.7 per cent in Australia’s retail trade in July, following rises of 0.4 per cent in May and June.

Home building approvals also rose by 2.3 per cent in July, on a seasonally adjusted basis, following steep declines over previous months.