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The top five principal commodities of seaborne inward cargo in tonnage terms included petroleum, petroleum products and related materials (20%); coal, coke and briquettes (10%); artificial resins and plastic materials (8%); iron and steel (7%) and paper and paper products (5%).
The top five principal commodities of seaborne outward cargo in tonnage terms included machinery (12%); other manufactured goods classified chiefly by material (9%); toys (9%); petroleum, petroleum products and related materials (8%) and other manufactured articles (7%).
The distribution of the top 10 countries/territories of loading and discharge and their changes in the tonnage of seaborne inward and outward cargo between the third quarter of 1996 and the third quarter of 1995 are shown in Table 2 and Table 3.
Similar statistics for seaborne inward and outward cargo analysed by the top 10 principal commodities are shown in Table 4 and Table 5.
Ocean vessel statistics are compiled primarily from general declarations submitted to the Marine Department by ship masters or authorised shipping agents and cover all ocean vessels entering and leaving Hong Kong, excluding yachts and pleasure craft.
Seaborne cargo statistics are compiled from a sample of consignments listed in the ocean cargo manifests supplied by shipping companies or agents to the Census and Statistics Department. The sampling method is described in the Explanatory Notes of the report.
More details of ocean vessel and seaborne cargo statistics for the third quarter of 1996 are contained in the report entitled Hong Kong Shipping Statistics, July - September 1996. This report is in bilingual form.
The report is now on sale at the Government Publications Centre, Queensway Government Offices, Low Block, ground floor, 66 Queensway, Hong Kong, and the Publications Unit of the Census and Statistics Department, 19th floor, Wanchai Tower, 12 Harbour Road, Wan Chai at $66 a copy.
Enquiries on statistics contained in the report may be directed to the Shipping and Cargo Statistics Section of the Census and Statistics Department on 2582 4887.