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External trade figures for January
The volume of re-exports in January 1996 increased by 20% over January 1995, while the volume of domestic exports increased by 2.8%, according to the statistics released by the Census and Statistics Department today (Thursday).
Taking re-exports and domestic exports together, the volume of total exports increased by 17%. Meanwhile, imports increased by 21% in volume.
The growth in the volume of trade is derived from the growth in trade values with the effect of price changes being discounted.
As regards price changes over the same period of comparison, the prices of re- exports and domestic exports increased by 1.9% and 1.7% respectively. Import prices increased by 2.2%.
Price changes are reflected by changes in unit value indices, which are compiled based on average unit values or, for certain commodities, based on specific price data.
The terms of trade index, defined as the ratio of total export price index to import price index, decreased marginally by 0.3% in January 1996 over January 1995.
Caution should be exercised in interpreting the changes in the volume of trade for a single month at the beginning of each year which may be affected by the timing of the Lunar New Year holidays. It is more meaningful to make comparisons over a longer period.
Comparing the three months ending January 1996 with the three months ending January 1995, the volume of re-exports and imports grew by 13% and 12% -respectively. However, the volume of domestic exports decreased by 2.9%.
The changes in the value, unit value and volume of re-exports by end-use category are shown in Table 1.
Comparing January 1996 with January 1995, the volume of re-exports of all end-use categories recorded increases of various magnitudes: capital goods (+38%), raw materials and semi-manufactures (+37%), fuels (+31%), foodstuffs (+18%), and consumer goods (+5.8%).