Table 2
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5
1989 together, retained imports of capital goods grew
by about 4%. In 1988, an increase of 17% was
recorded (Table 2). The weakening in machinery investment was in line with the sluggish economic performance, particularly in the third quarter. The events in China in early June have also undermined
investor confidence.
Table 3
6.
Industrial machinery is the largest category of retained imports of capital goods. (accounting for 24% of the total value in the first three quarters of 1989), followed by transport equipment (15%), and electronic components and parts for computers (9%). A breakdown of retained imports of capital goods by major categories, along with their respective growth rates in money terms, is given in Table 3. Because of the difficulties in compiling reliable price indices as the product breakdown becomes more disaggregated, growth rates in
real terms are not available for all the categories.
Caution should be exercised in interpreting the changes in money terms shown in Table 3, as the increases in the prices of different categories of imported capital goods in different periods were not entirely uniform.
(c) Retained imports of industrial
machinery for use in the manufacturing
sector
G.F. 326
7.
Retained imports of industrial machinery for manufacturing use decreased by about 13% in the third quarter, after an increase of around 4% in the
first half of 1989. Taking the first three quarters
of 1989 together, these retained imports decreased by
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