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The value of imports continued to increase substantially, by 20% over a year earlier to $131.2 billion in August 1995.
Changes in the value of imports from ten main suppliers are shown in Table 5.
Comparing August 1995 with August 1994, the value of imports from all main suppliers showed increases of various magnitudes: France (+79%), Singapore (+64%), South Korea (+43%), Malaysia (+42%), the United Kingdom (+30%), the United States (+27%), Taiwan (+21%), Germany (+17%), Japan (+16%) and China (+9.8%).
Comparing the first eight months of 1995 with the same period in 1994, the value of imports from all main suppliers showed increases of various magnitudes: France (+91%), Malaysia (+45%), Singapore (+33%), South Korea (+32%), the United States (+31%), Taiwan (+25%), the United Kingdom (+24%), Germany (+21%), Japan (+19%) and China (+18%).
The value of imports in the first eight months of 1995, at $976.4 billion, increased markedly, by 23% over the same period in 1994.
Table 6 shows changes in the value of imports of ten principal commodity
divisions.
Comparing the first eight months of 1995 with the same period in 1994, increases were recorded in the value of imports of most principal commodity divisions.
More notable increases were registered for electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $34.3 billion or 40%); telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (by $19.5 billion or 26%); office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $14.6 billion or 50%); textiles (by $10.6 billion or 14%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of baby carriages, toys, games and sporting goods (by $10.5 billion or 19%); and photographic apparatus, equipment and supplies, optical goods, watches and clocks (by $7.1 billion or 21%).
Over the same period, a small decrease in the value of imports was recorded for road vehicles (by $966 million or 2.9%).
All the trade statistics described here are measured at current prices and no account has been taken of changes in prices between the periods of comparison. A separate analysis of the volume and price movements of external trade for August 1995 will be released in early November 1995.