XN000022-1996-08-12 — Page 7

Comparing the first half of 1996 with the same period in 1995, decreases in the value of domestic exports were registered for office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $2.7 billion or 28%); clothing (by $2.4 billion or 7.6%); telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (by $1.1 billion or 21%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of jewellery, goldsmiths' and silversmiths' wares (by $948 million or 10%); and photographic apparatus, equipment and supplies, optical goods, watches and clocks (by $663 million or 8.2%).

Over the same period, increases in the value of domestic exports were recorded for electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $907 million or 6.3%); and machinery specialised for particular industries (by $113 million or 8%).

Changes in the value of imports from 10 main suppliers are shown in Table 5.

Comparing June 1996 with June 1995, decreases were recorded in the value of imports from Japan (-18%), Taiwan (-12%), the United Kingdom (-11%), South Korea (-9.1%), Germany (-6.3%), China (-2.3%) and Italy (-1.5%).

However, the value of imports from the United States, Singapore and Malaysia increased by 9.1%, 4.1% and 1.9% respectively.

Comparing the first half of 1996 with the same period in 1995, increases were recorded in the value of imports from Malaysia (+20%), Italy (+18%), the United Kingdom (+12%), the United States (+10%), Singapore (+9.6%), China (+4.7%), Germany (+1.9%), and South Korea (+0.2%).

However, the value of imports from Japan and Taiwan decreased by 8% and 3.6% respectively.

Taking all sources together, the value of imports in the first half of 1996, at $733.8 billion, increased by 3.2% over the same period in 1995.

Table 6 shows changes in the value of imports of 10 principal commodity

divisions.

Comparing the first half 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 $7.5 billion or 8.7%); office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $6 billion or 19%); clothing (by $2.2 billion or 5.1%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of baby carriages, toys, games and sporting goods (by $2.1 billion or 4.5%); general industrial machinery and equipment, and machine parts (by $1.8 billion or 7.9%); and footwear (by $1.5 billion or 5.9%).