Macau’s gold jewellery imports fell 29 percent year-on-year to 723 million patacas in August, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) announced Tuesday.
However, the import of watches – another item popular with mainland tourists – rose 30 percent to 720 million patacas.
Mobile phone imports dropped 21 percent to 311 million patacas. The import of handbags and wallets rose a mere one percent to 290 million patacas.
While domestic exports fell 15 percent to just 148 million patacas, re-exports rose 11 percent to 603 million patacas.
The total value of imports increased five percent to 7.2 billion patacas, resulting in a trade balance deficit of 6.4 billion patacas in August.
In the first eight months, exports rose eight percent to 6.5 billion patacas, while imports increased 11 percent to 57.5 billion patacas.
Between January and August, 59 percent of all exports went to Hong Kong. About 32 percent of all imports originated from the mainland. Most other imports came from Hong Kong (10 percent), Switzerland (10 percent), France (9 percent) and Italy (7 percent).
(macaunews/macaupost)
