Media Release Trade-weighted Index

New weights for the trade-weighted index (TWI) of the Australian dollar have been compiled by the Reserve Bank and are attached. These weights, which reflect the country composition of Australia's merchandise trade in 2009/10, will apply from 1 October 2010.

There are 21 currencies included in the index for 2010/11. The regions associated with the 21 currencies account for 93 per cent of Australia's merchandise trade.

The order of the top five currencies in the index is unchanged from the previous year. The weight of the Chinese renminbi remains the highest in the index, and has increased by around 4 percentage points from last year. The Japanese yen is ranked second, although its weight decreased by 2 percentage points from last year. The weights on the euro and US dollar each fell by around a ½ percentage point from last year.

Weights in the Trade-weighted Index

Per cent

Currency	Trade weight
	2010/11	2009/10
Chinese renminbi	22.5371	18.5621
Japanese yen	14.9356	17.1230
European euro	9.9174	10.4411
United States dollar	8.5423	8.9794
South Korean won	6.4074	6.2613
Indian rupee	4.9052	4.2608
Thai baht	4.6668	3.8159
Singapore dollar	4.3425	4.6111
New Zealand dollar	4.0894	3.7914
United Kingdom pound sterling	3.5337	4.9916
Malaysian ringgit	3.1598	2.9284
New Taiwan dollar	2.7943	2.9741
Indonesian rupiah	2.4527	2.2685
Papua New Guinea kina	1.3340	1.1229
Vietnamese dong	1.2292	1.3672
United Arab Emirates dirham	1.1617	1.3446
Hong Kong dollar	1.0461	1.1207
Canadian dollar	0.8213	0.9619
South African rand	0.7530	0.8056
Swedish krona	0.6885	0.7310
Swiss franc	0.6820	0.7631
Saudi Arabian riyal	..	0.7743