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Changes in the value of domestic exports to ten main destinations are shown in Table 3.
Comparing the first two months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, increases were recorded in the value of domestic exports to Taiwan (+21%), the United Kingdom (+15%), France (+5.0%), Germany (+3.2%), China (+1.3%), the Netherlands (+0.8%), the United States (+0.8%) and Canada (+0.7%).
However, the value of domestic exports to Singapore and Japan decreased by 12% and 5.2% respectively.
Taking all destinations together, the value of domestic exports in the first two months of 1996, at $33.2 billion, increased marginally by 0.7% over the same period in 1995.
Table 4 shows changes in the value of domestic exports of ten principal commodity divisions.
Comparing the first two months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, increases in the value of domestic exports were registered for electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $891 million or 21%); clothing (by $730 million or 7.5%); textiles (by $118 million or 6.0%); and machinery specialised for particular industries (by $100 million or 25%).
Over the same period, decreases in the value of domestic exports were recorded for office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $1.0 billion or 32%); telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (by $380 million or 22%); and plastics in primary forms (by $133 million or 20%).
The value of imports decreased by 3.7% over a year earlier to $96.0 billion in February 1996.
Changes in the value of imports from ten main suppliers are shown in Table 5.
Comparing February 1996 with February 1995, decreases were recorded in the value of imports from South Korea (-21%), Japan (-21%), Taiwan (-20%), Germany (- 18%) and the United States (-0.8%).
However, the value of imports from China, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Italy and Malaysia increased by 14%, 8.5%, 4.9%, 4.7% and 4.1% respectively.
Comparing the first two months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, the value of imports from most main suppliers showed increases of various magnitudes : Italy (+35%), Malaysia (+30%), the United Kingdom (+19%), the United States (+17%), China (+15%), Singapore (+13%), Germany (+11%), Taiwan (+6.4%) and South Korea (+0.7%).