Aug 17 (Reuters) - Australian shares were flat in choppy trade on Wednesday, as a sharp drop in biomedical giant CSL Ltd after it posted lower annual profit was offset by gains in miners.

The S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.03% by 0025 GMT.

The benchmark shuffled between the positive and negative territory in early trade, reflecting cautious investor sentiment ahead of the release of July employment report on Thursday.

Market attention was however fixed on the ongoing corporate earnings.

CSL plunged up to 6% at open before paring some losses to trade 3.3% lower, after it disappointed market with a lower annual profit.

This weighed on the health sub-index, down as much as 4% to its lowest levels in more than a month.

Aussie miners, on the other hand, rose as much as 1.2%, helping offset the drag from CSL, with major miners Rio Tinto and BHP Group gaining more than 1.2%, each.

The industrials sector outperformed with a 1% jump, helped by gains in Fletcher Building and pallets maker Brambles on upbeat earnings.

A decline in crude oil prices drove a 0.7% drop in the energy sub-index. Energy producer Santos shed 1.4%, even as its interim profit grew four-folds.

In New Zealand, investors await the central bank's policy meeting later in the day, where it is widely expected to hike rates by another half-point to contain runaway inflation. The country's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index reversed gains to fall 0.2%.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's Nikkei was up 0.85% and the S&P 500 E-minis futures were down 0.04%.

(Reporting by Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)