MW: Australian current account deficit rises to $7.55B
By Sarah Turner
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- Australia's current account deficit, in seasonally adjusted current price terms, increased 2.4 billion Australian dollars, or 45%, to A$7.83 billion ($7.55 billion) in the three months to end-September. Economists had been expecting a deficit of A$6.7 billion, according to data compiled by Dow Jones Newswires. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday that the surplus on the country's balance of goods and services fell A$797 million, or 12%, to A$5.77 billion in the three-month period. In seasonally-adjusted chain volume terms, there was a turnaround of A$1.46 billion on net goods and services over the quarter, resulting in a deficit of A$68 million. The ABS said that this is likely to detract 0.4 percentage points from growth in the September quarter 2010 volume measure of gross domestic product. GDP figures are due out Wednesday. The Australian dollar rose 0.2% to 96.41 U.S. cents.
