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However, the value of imports from Taiwan and France decreased by 6.3% and 4.5% respectively.

Table 6 shows changes in the value of imports of ten principal commodity divisions.

Comparing the three months ending January 1997 with the three months ending January 1996, more notable increases in the value of imports were registered for office machines and automatic data processing machines (by $3.8 billion or 20%); clothing (by $2.6 billion or 10%); electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (by $2.5 billion or 5.2%); footwear (by $885 million or 6.2%); and miscellaneous manufactured articles consisting mainly of baby carriages, toys, games and sporting goods (by $726 million or 2.9%).

Over the same period, more notable decreases in the value of imports were recorded for road vehicles (by $1.7 billion or 15%) and textiles (by $1.1 billion or 3.4%).

All the trade statistics described here are measured at current prices and no account has been taken of changes in prices between the periods of comparison.

A separate analysis of the volume and price movements of external trade for January 1997 will be released in early April 1997.

Detailed trade statistics analysed by commodity and by country/territory are published in trade statistics reports.

The January 1997 issue of the "Hong Kong External Trade" with detailed analyses on the performance of Hong Kong's external trade in January 1997 will be on sale at $111 per copy around March 20, 1997.

The report can be purchased at either the Government Publications Centre, Ground Floor, Low Block, Queensway Government Offices, 66 Queensway, Hong Kong, or the Publications Unit of the Census and Statistics Department, 19th Floor, Wanchai Tower, 12 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong.

Enquiries regarding regular subscription to this report may be directed to the Publications (Sales) Office, 28th Floor, Siu On Centre, 188 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong (Tel. No. 2598 8194) and enquiries on trade statistics to the Census and Statistics Department (Tel. No. 2582 4915).