Macau trade deficit improved in the period from January to November 2016, having declined 18.34 per cent to 55,482 patacas (US$6.935 billion), reported the region’s Statistics and Census Bureau.
The improvement recorded in the trade deficit was due, primarily, to the fact that Macau substantially reduced imports of goods, which in the period between January and November 2015 had reached 77.805 billion patacas.
In turn, Macau’s exports remained relatively unchanged year on year, and from January to November 2015 amounted to 9.786 billion patacas and 9.294 billion patacas in the same period of 2016, a drop of 5.0 per cent.
Imports of some products recorded significant falls year on year over the first 11 months of the year, such as wristwatches (-26.9 per cent), passenger cars and motorcycles (-54.0 per cent), fuels and lubricants (-12.2 per cent), mobile phones (-39.4 per cent) and building materials (-37.8 per cent).
In November, the trade deficit stood at 6.027 billion patacas, which compares with 5.801 billion patacas a year earlier. This increase was due to the rise in imports from 6.669 billion patacas in 2015 to 6.824 billion patacas in 2016 and the decrease in imports, which fell from 867 million patacas in 2015 to 797 million patacas in 2016.
(Macauhub)
