Australia 3 mths to March GDP up 1.6 pct vs 1.1 pct in Dec qtr

Jun 5, 2007 - Gross domestic product in the three months to March rose by a seasonally adjusted 1.6 pct and was up 3.6 pct year-on-year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said.

The quarterly outcome was the strongest growth since the December quarter of 2003 and was well above the economist consensus forecast for first quarter GDP growth of 1.2 pct.

The ABS said three months to December GDP growth was an adjusted 1.1 pct, revised up from the previous estimate of 1.0 pct growth.

The bureau said that in seasonally adjusted terms, the increase in GDP in the March quarter was a result of positive contributions from private business investment, up 1.2 percentage points, which was affected by the privatization of telco Telstra.

Household final consumption expenditure rose 0.9 percentage points over the quarter.

It said this growth was offset by negative contributions from the imports of goods and services which fell 0.5 percentage points from the fourth quarter.

In seasonally adjusted terms, the strongest contributions to growth were from the construction and finance/insurance industries, both up 0.2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, along with a number of other industries contributing 0.1 percentage points.

The ABS said this growth was offset by negative contributions from the manufacturing, electricity, gas and water supply sectors which fell 0.1 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.