The line chart depicts the proportion of exports of Australia to Japan, the US, China and India between 1990 and 2012.
Overall, there was an increase in the Australian export rates to China and India, while the reverse was true for the US and Japan. Notably, Japan consistently accounted for the highest percentage of Australian exports, except the period from 2008 onwards.
Regarding the downward trend, Japan comprised around 25% of exports from Australia in 1990, after which this country witnessed a gradual decline to one-fifth of the exports in the next five years before concluding at roughly 16% in 2012. Similarly, 11% of exports to the US in the beginning, followed by a plummet to approximately 7% at the end of the period despite a slow rise to reach its peak of 13%.
It is also evident in the upward tendency that both China and India made up insignificant proportions of Australia exports at first, with 3% and 2% respectively. However, China experienced a dramatic rise in exports, surging to 28% in 2012 after surpassing those of Japan in 2008. Similar changes can be observed in the figure for India, which grew moderately to hit its peak of 8% in 2009 and concluded the period at around 5%.