Australia’s GDP expanded by 0.2% qoq in Q1, missing expectations of 0.3% qoq growth. This marked the slowest rate of growth since the September 2021 quarter.
Head of National Accounts at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Katherine Keenan, remarked on this development. “This is the sixth straight rise in quarterly GDP but the slowest growth since the COVID-19 Delta lockdowns in September quarter 2021,” she said.
The GDP implicit price deflator, a measure of price changes, climbed by 1.9% in the quarter and by 6.8% from March 2022. A significant contributor to this increase was rise in terms of trade by 2.8%, led by steeper decline in import prices (-4.0%) than export prices (-1.4%).
Fall in import prices, the largest since December 2010, was propelled by global drop in oil prices and appreciation of Australian dollar. Meanwhile, a decrease in export prices was led by rural and mining commodities.
Domestic price growth decelerated to 1.1% as goods inflation eased. This is a downturn from the 1.4% increase observed in the December 2022 quarter.
