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·G.F.-326-
• 5
Table 2
Table 3
5.
(b)
Retained imports of capital
goods
Subject to certain statistical
limitations, retained imports of capital goods provide another useful indicator of the latest
trend in investment in plant and machinery. The growth rate of these retained imports slowed to
about 7% in the second quarter of 1989, from 18%
in the first quarter. The corresponding growth
rate for 1988 as a whole was 17% (Table 2).
This slow-down is in line with the moderation in
overall economic growth. The recent events in China are expected to reinforce this downtrend
over the next few months.
6.
Industrial machinery is the largest category of retained imports of capital goods (accounting for 23% of the total value in the
first half of 1989), followed by transport equipment (14%), 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.
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