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External trade statistics by country and commodity
Detailed statistics on external trade with breakdown by country/territory and commodity for August 1996 was released by the Census and Statistics Department today (Friday).
In August 1996, the value of re-exports grew by 6% over a year earlier to $106.7 billion, while the value of domestic exports decreased by 11% to $18.2 billion. Meanwhile, imports increased marginally by 0.7% to $132.1 billion.
Changes in the value of Hong Kong's re-exports to 10 main destinations are shown in Table 1.
Comparing August 1996 with August 1995, increases were recorded in the value of re-exports to Japan (+13%), the Netherlands (+10%), South Korea (+10%), the United States (+9.4%), China (+7.4%), France (+7.3%), the United Kingdom (+5.5%) and Germany (+4%).
However, the value of re-exports to Taiwan and Singapore decreased by 9.9% and 0.7% respectively.
Comparing the first eight months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, the value of re-exports to most main destinations showed increases of various magnitudes: Japan (+22%), the United Kingdom (+14%), France (+12%), the Netherlands (+8.7%), China (+8.7%), Germany (+8%), South Korea (+6.5%), Singapore (+5.7%) and the United States (+2.8%).
However, the value of re-exports to Taiwan decreased by 4.8%.
Taking all destinations together, the value of re-exports in the first eight months of 1996 was $768.6 billion, 7.4% higher than that in the same period in 1995.
Table 2 shows changes in the value of re-exports of 10 principal commodity divisions.
Comparing the first eight months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, the value of re-exports of most principal commodity divisions rose.