Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Six years of creating new market access opportunities is delivering for Australia. ABS data last week showed Australia posted our largest-ever calendar year trade surplus in 2019. It was a trade surplus of $67.6 billion, fuelled by a record-breaking run of 24 consecutive monthly trade surpluses from Australia. You have to go back to 1972-73 to find the previous record. Indeed it is fuelled in part by exports of goods surging 13.4 per cent in 2019 over 2018 levels—resources up, manufacturing exports up, rural exports also up, notwithstanding drought conditions. Yearly services exports are also growing by 8.9 per cent, recognising the diversification of our economy and crossing the $100 billion mark for our services exports for the first time ever as we helped to charge all aspects of the Australian economy.