XN000022-1996-11-15 — Page 15

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Domestic export statistics by industrial origin

The four major industries of textiles; wearing apparel; machinery, equipment, apparatus, parts and components; and consumer electrical and electronic products together accounted for 70% of Hong Kong's total domestic exports of manufactured goods in the third quarter of 1996, according to statistics released today (Friday) by the Census and Statistics Department.

In the third quarter of 1996, domestic exports of consumer electrical and electronic products; machinery, equipment, apparatus, parts and components; wearing apparel; and textiles decreased by 21%, 18%, 9% and 4% over a year earlier to $6.5 billion, $8.7 billion, $11 billion and $13.7 billion respectively.

More notable decreases in the value of domestic exports were also recorded for professional and optical equipment (-$554 million or -13%) and basic metals and fabricated metal products (-$186 million or -7%).

For the transport equipment industry, although the change in absolute value was not as large, a marked percentage decrease of 48% was recorded.

On the other hand, a notable increase in the value of domestic exports was recorded for food (+$125 million or +19%).

The above statistics of domestic exports classified by industrial origin are derived by re grouping the merchandise export items originally grouped under the external trade classification system according to the industries in which these merchandise items are normally produced. Transactions in gold and specie are excluded.

The industrial classification used is the Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification (HSIC). The HSIC is to be distinguished from the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) used in the regular trade statistics reports.

In comparison, the HSIC is more related to production processes whereas the SITC is more geared to end uses of products.

Caution should be taken when referring to these domestic export statistics classified by industrial origin. There may be several intermediate processing stages in the production of certain merchandise export items.