XN000022-1996-09-12 — Page 23

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External trade statistics by country and commodity for July

Detailed statistics on external trade with breakdown by country/territory and commodity for July 1996 was released by the Census and Statistics Department today (Thursday).

In July 1996, the value of re-exports grew by 11% over a year earlier to $111.1 billion, while the value of domestic exports decreased by 6.1% to $20.8 billion. Meanwhile, imports increased by 3.5% to $138.6 billion.

Changes in the value of Hong Kong's re-exports to 10 main destinations are shown in Table 1.

Comparing July 1996 with July 1995, increases were recorded in the value of re-exports to the United Kingdom (+27%), Japan (+16%), France (+16%), China (+13%), the Netherlands (+13%), the United States (+12%), Germany (+11%) and South Korea (+4.4%).

However, the value of re-exports to Taiwan and Singapore decreased by 3.5% and 1.8% respectively.

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Comparing the first seven months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, the value of re-exports to most main destinations showed increases of various magnitudes: Japan (+24%), the United Kingdom (+16%), France (+13%), China (+8.9%), Germany (+8.6%), the Netherlands (+8.5%), Singapore (+6.7%), South Korea (+6.0%) and the United States (+1.5%).

However, the value of re-exports to Taiwan decreased by 4%.

Taking all destinations together, the value of re-exports in the first seven months of 1996 was $661.9 billion, 7.6% 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 seven months of 1996 with the same period in 1995, the value of re-exports of most principal commodity divisions rose.