He said the trade balance was likely to remain in deficit until Australia's mining boom switched from stage two to three - from the so called investment stage to the production stage - around 2014.
"Once you see the peak in resource investment you are going to see your imports, particularly capital imports start to decline, which bodes well for the external accounts," he said.
"Then as we enter the final stage of the mining boom and you will see coal, iron ore and LNG exports start to ramp up as output from those mines gather momentum."
