Australia posted a seasonally adjusted merchandise trade deficit of A$2.46 billion in July, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday - marking a 19 percent monthly gain.
The headline figure topped expectations for a deficit of A$3.16 billion following the A$3.05 billion shortfall in the previous month.
Exports were up A$612 million or 2.0 percent on month to A$26.903 billion.
Non-monetary gold surged A$646 million (62 percent) and net exports of goods under merchanting added A$2 million (6 percent).
Rural goods dipped A$76 million (2 percent) and non-rural goods fell a$9 million. Services credits added A$49 million (1 percent).
Imports were roughly flat, adding A$23 million to A$29.363 billion.
Capital goods jumped A$662 million (13 percent) and consumption goods added A$228 million (3 percent).
Intermediate and other merchandise goods slipped A$811 million (8 percent) and non-monetary gold tumbled A$38 million (11 percent). Services debits were down A$18 million.
Also on Thursday, the ABS said that the total value of retail sales in Australia was down a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent on month in July, coming in at A$24.311 billion.
That was well shy of forecasts for an increase of 0.4 percent following the downwardly revised 0.6 percent gain in June (originally 0.7 percent).
Among the individual components, food retailing was up 0.2 percent, followed by household goods retailing (0.4 percent), cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (0.3 percent), other retailing (0.3 percent) and clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (0.4 percent). Department stores were down 0.1 percent.
By region, sales in New South Wales were up 0.4 percent, followed by Victoria (0.2 percent), Western Australia (0.1 percent), the Australian Capital Territory (0.5 percent), South Australia (0.1 percent) and the Northern Territory (0.3 percent).
Queensland (0.0 percent) and Tasmania (0.0 percent) were relatively unchanged.
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