3
The Economy
The Economy in 2013
External trade
The still challenging international trading environment continued to restrain Hong Kong's external trade in 2013. Total exports of goods, compiled under the GDP accounts, expanded by 6.7 per cent in real terms in 2013. Yet, on the basis of external merchandise trade statistics, after excluding the substantial increase in exports of non-monetary gold, merchandise exports only grew modestly by 2.8 per cent in real terms. Despite the relative improvement in growth in the advanced economies in the latter half of 2013, exports to the US and the European Union both fell for the year as a whole, and those to Japan were further dented by the slackened import demand due to the much weakened yen. The tepid import demand in the advanced economies also weighed on the production and trading activities in Asia, leading to the generally weak performance in exports to many Asian economies. Nonetheless, thanks to the resilience of the Mainland economy, exports to the Mainland accelerated in growth and lent important support to Hong Kong's overall export performance. In terms of the quarterly profile, merchandise exports maintained modest growth throughout the year, expanding by 4 per cent, 2.4 per cent, 2 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively in the four quarters (Chart 8). On a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter comparison, merchandise exports shrank mildly in the first two quarters, and then rebounded in the last two quarters.
Chart 8
Hong Kong's Visible Trade
(year-on-year rate of change in volume terms)
Per cent
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
Total exports of
goods
Imports of goods
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2009 |
2010
2011
I 2012
2013
Merchandise exports rose modestly in 2013 amid sub-par global economic growth.
Imports of goods, on merchandise trade statistics basis, rose moderately by 3.9 per cent in volume terms in 2013, up from 1 per cent in 2012, driven by faster growth in both retained imports and import intake related to re-exports. Retained imports, which accounted for over one-quarter of total imports, grew by 6.3 per cent in real terms in 2013, up from the 3.5 per cent increase in the preceding year. Analysed by end-use category, retained imports of foodstuffs expanded visibly while those of consumer goods also saw further increase, largely bolstered by the resilient local consumption market. Meanwhile, retained imports of capital goods
44