Australia had a seasonally adjusted merchandise trade deficit of A$436 million in December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.
That exceeded expectations for a shortfall of A$850 million following the downwardly revised 1.016 billion deficit in November (originally -A$925 million).
Exports were up 1.0 percent on month to A$27.243 billion, while imports fell 1.0 percent to A$27.680 billion.
For all of 2014, the trade deficit was A$9.9 billion following the A$10.3 billion shortfall in 2013.
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