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Comparing December 1996 with December 1995, increases were recorded in the value of imports from Malaysia (+24%), Germany (+16%), the United Kingdom (+12%), Singapore (+9.7%), Italy (+3.8%), China (+3.2%), South Korea (+2.1%) and Japan (+0.9%).
However, the value of imports from the United States and Taiwan decreased by 3.4% and 2.0% respectively.
Comparing 1996 with 1995, increases were recorded in the value of imports from Malaysia (+18%), Italy (+15%), the United Kingdom (+9.2%), Germany (+5.8%), China (+5.7%), the United States (+5.2%) and Singapore (+4.4%).
However, there was basically no change in the value of imports from South Korea while the value of imports from Japan and Taiwan decreased by 5.9% and 4.7% respectively.
Taking all sources together, the value of imports, at $1,535.6 billion, increased by 3.0% in 1996.
Table 6 shows changes in the value of imports of ten principal commodity
divisions.
Comparing 1996 with 1995, more notable increases in the value of imports were registered for office machines and automatic data processing machines (vy $12.6 billion or 18%); electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $10 billion or 5.4%); clothing (by $7.5 billion or 7.7%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of baby carriages, toys, games and sporting goods (by $4.1 billion or 4.0%); and footwear (by $4.0 billion or 7.6%).
Over the same period, decreases in the value of imports were recorded for telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (by $4.9 billion or 3.4%); textiles (by $2.7 billion or 2.1%); and non-metallic mineral manufactures (by $569 million or 1.3%).
All the trade statistics described here are measured at current prices and no account has been taken of changes in prices between the periods of comparison.
A separate analysis of the volume and price movements of external trade for December 1996 will be released in early March 1997.
Detailed trade statistics analysed by commodity and by country/territory are published in trade statistics reports.