It is in the destinations of exports, however, that we see perhaps the most striking changes over the space of a decade. As it happens, the weights in the Reserve Bank’s trade-weighted measure of the value of the Australian dollar were updated just a few weeks ago. In the most recent year, the overall weight on the Chinese currency rose by 4 percentage points.
That was quite a large movement in a single year but it is just the latest manifestation of a profound trend. Stepping back, it is apparent that there has been a striking further orientation in trade towards the Asian region since 2000. 6 The table below tells the story.