Macao’s foreign trade during the first four months of 2024 amounted to approximately 48 billion patacas, a decrease of 5.7 percent year-on-year, according to data published yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (also known by its Portuguese abbreviation DSEC).
During this period, exports grew by 12.6 percent, while imports experienced a dip of 7.3 percent, with the trade deficit amounting to around 39 billion patacas.
Hong Kong was by far Macao’s biggest export destination in the first four months of 2024, registering a total of 3.11 billion patacas, an increase of 0.7 percent year-on-year.
The European Union and mainland China, on the other hand, accounted for most of the imports to Macao, with a total value of 13.45 billion patacas (a 16.6 percent decrease) and 12.20 billion patacas (a 2.6 percent decrease) respectively.
[See more: Macao’s GDP grew by almost 26 percent during the first quarter]
For the month of April, the SAR’s exports witnessed a year-on-year increase of 42 percent, with a total value of 1.22 billion patacas. Imports, meanwhile, fell to roughly 11 billion patacas, representing a decrease of around 4 percent in comparison to April 2023. In total, the trade deficit reached 9.9 billion patacas during this period.
Imports from Lusophone countries to Macao in April saw a drop of almost 26 percent in value year-on-year, totalling 102 million patacas. DSEC data also indicates that Portuguese-speaking countries spent a total of almost 258,000 patacas on goods from Macao, an increase of over 500 percent against the mere 40,000 patacas registered in April 2023.
Brazil remained the SAR’s biggest Portuguese-speaking trade partner, with imports from the South American nation reaching a total of 73.7 million patacas, a drop of roughly 35 percent compared to the same month last year.
Imports from Portugal reached around 27.1 million patacas, representing a growth of 21 percent year-on-year.
