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Over the same period, decreases in the value of domestic exports were recorded for office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $2.2 billion or 28%); clothing (by $1.5 billion or 6%); telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (by $849 million or 20%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of jewellery, goldsmiths' and silversmiths' wares (by $543 million or 7%); and photographic apparatus, equipment and supplies, optical goods, watches and clocks (by $465 million or 6.9%).
Changes in the value of imports from 10 main suppliers are shown in Table 5.
Comparing May 1996 with May 1995, decreases were recorded in the value of imports from Germany (-19%), Japan (-15% ), Taiwan (-14%), South Korea (-10%), the United States (-2.7%) and Singapore (-0.1%).
However, the value of imports from Italy, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and China increased by 16%, 5.9%, 5.8% and 5.6% respectively.
Comparing the first five months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, increases were recorded in the value of imports from Malaysia (+24%), Italy (+22%), the United Kingdom (+17%), Singapore (+11%), the United States (+10%), China (+6.3%), Germany (+3.6%) and South Korea (+2.2%).
However, the value of imports from Japan and Taiwan decreased by 5.9% and 1.9% respectively.
Taking all sources together, the value of imports in the first five months of 1996, at $610 billion, increased by 4.7% over the same period in 1995.
Table 6 shows changes in the value of imports of 10 principal commodity
divisions.
Comparing the first five months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, increases in the value of imports were registered for electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $8.4 billion or 12%); office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $5.9 billion or 23%); clothing (by $2.4 billion or 6.7%); general industrial machinery and equipment, and machine parts (by $1.8 billion or 9.5%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of baby carriages, toys, games and sporting goods (by $1.5 billion or 4%); and telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (by $1.4 billion or 2.6%);