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Volume & price statistics of external trade in Jan 1997
In January 1997, the volume of re-exports increased by 2.6% over a year earlier, while that of domestic exports decreased by 7.4%. Taken together, the volume of total exports increased by 1.0%. Concurrently, the volume of imports increased by 3.0%.
The Census and Statistics Department today (Friday) released detailed volume and price statistics of external trade for January 1997,
Comparing January 1997 with January 1996, the prices of re-exports and domestic exports decreased by 1.3% and 1.5% respectively. Meanwhile, import prices decreased by 2.4%.
The growth in volume of trade is derived from the growth in trade value with the effect of price changes discounted.
Price changes are reflected by changes in unit value indices which are compiled based on average unit values or, for certain commodities, based on specific price data.
The terms of trade index, defined as the ratio of total export price index to import price index, recorded an increase of 1.1% in January 1997 over January 1996.
Caution should be exercised in interpreting the changes in the volume of trade for a single month at the beginning of each year which may be affected by the timing of the Lunar New Year holidays. It is more meaningful to make comparisons over a longer period.
Comparing the three months ending January 1997 with the three months ending January 1996, the volume of re-exports and imports increased by 5.5% and 5.1% respectively. However, the volume of domestic exports dropped by 7.6%.
The changes in the value, unit value and volume of re-exports by end-use category are shown in Table 1.
Analysed by end-use category, increases in re-export volume in January 1997 over a year earlier were recorded for capital goods (+18%); fuels (+3.7%); consumer goods (+0.6%); and foodstuffs (+0.3%).
On the other hand, the volume of re-exports of raw materials and semi- manufactures decreased by 4.2%.