XN000022-1997-02-13 — Page 11

-

10.

-

Hong Kong's external trade statistics for December 1996

In December 1996, the value of re-exports grew by 3.5% over a year earlier to $98.4 billion, while the value of domestic exports decreased by 9.6% to $18.2 billion. Meanwhile, imports increased by 2.9% to $131.4 billion.

The Census and Statistics Department today (Thursday) released detailed statistics on external trade with breakdown by country/territory and commodity for December and the whole year of 1996.

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

Comparing December 1996 with December 1995, increases were recorded in the value of re-exports to Singapore (+22%), the United States (+9.9%), China (+9.1%), the United Kingdom (+3.8%) and the Netherlands (+3.8%).

However, decreases were recorded in the value of re-exports to Germany (- 15%), South Korea (-7.3%), Japan (-5.6%), Taiwan (-1.0%) and France (-0.4%).

Comparing 1996 with 1995, the value of re-exports to most main destinations showed increases of various magnitudes : Japan (+14%), the United Kingdom (+12%), the Netherlands (+9.3%), Singapore (+9.1%), China (+8.8%), France (+7.9%), the United States (+4.9%), South Korea (+4.1%) and Germany (+3.2%).

However, the value of re-exports to Taiwan decreased by 4.0%.

Taking all destinations together, the value of re-exports for the whole year of 1996 was $1,185.8 billion, 6.6% higher than that in 1995.

Table 2 shows changes in the value of re-exports of ten principal commodity

divisions.

Comparing 1996 with 1995, more notable increases in the value of re-exports were registered for office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $13.4 billion or 23%); clothing (by $9.6 billion or 11%); electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $9.1 billion or 8.0%); miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of baby carriages, toys, games and sporting goods (by $7.3 billion or 5.1%); footwear (by $5.1 billion or 8.4%); and photographic apparatus, equipment and supplies, optical goods, watches and clocks (by $4.8 billion or 9.4%).