Industries: mining, industrial and transportation equipment, food processing, chemicals, steel, motor vehicles
Agriculture: accounts for 5% of GNP and 37% of export revenues; world's largest exporter of beef and wool, second-largest for mutton, and among top wheat exporters; major crops—wheat, barley, sugarcane, fruit; livestock—cattle, sheep, poultry
Aid: donor—ODA and OOF commitments (1970-87), $8.8 billion
Currency: Australian dollar (plural—dollars); 1 Australian dollar
($A) = 100 cents
Exchange rates: Australian dollars ($A) per US$1—1.2784 (January 1990), 1.2618 (1989), 1.2752 (1988), 1.4267 (1987), 1.4905 (1986), 1.4269 (1985)
Fiscal year: 1 July-30 June
- Communications Railroads: 40,478 km total; 7,970 km 1.600-meter gauge, 16,201 km 1.435-meter standard gauge, 16,307 km 1.067-meter gauge; 183 km dual gauge; 1,130 km electrified; government owned (except for a few hundred kilometers of privately owned track) (1985)
Highways: 837,872 km total; 243,750 km paved, 228,396 km gravel, crushed stone, or stabilized soil surface, 365,726 km unimproved earth
Inland waterways: 8,368 km; mainly by small, shallow-draft craft
Pipelines: crude oil, 2,500 km; refined products, 500 km; natural gas, 5,600 km