Year-on-year, exports went down by 1.1 percent to HKD 309.2 billion from HKD 312.7 billion. Exports to Asia went down by 0.1 percent, as sales to Malaysia (-9.9 percent), Korea (-9.1 percent), Taiwan (-8.7 percent), Thailand (-8.1 percent), Singapore (-5.3 percent) and Japan (-0.7 percent) fell the most and shipments to China decreased by 0.9 percent. On the other hand, exports rose to Indonesia (+15.8 percent) and India (+8.5 percent) while those to the United Kingdom (-3.8 percent), the USA (-0.7 percent) and Germany (-0.4 percent) dropped.
Imports declined by 4.6 percent to HKD 354.9 billion from HKD 372.0 billion in December last year, driven by lower purchases from Switzerland (-17.9 percent), Japan (-13.1 percent), the USA (-11.8 percent), India (-11.7 percent), Taiwan (-9.5 percent), South Korea (-7.2 percent) and China (-1.0 percent).
Considering full 2015, decreases were registered in sales to some major destinations, in particular Taiwan (-18.0 percent), Korea (-12.8 percent), Japan (-6.6 percent), Germany (-3.2 percent), Singapore (-2.3 percent) and China (-2.1 percent) while increases were recorded for Vietnam (+14.7 percent), India (+8.1 percent) and the United Kingdom (+0.8 percent). Among products sales fell for office machines and automatic data processing machines (-5.2 percent); articles of apparel and clothing accessories (-10.2 percent) and miscellaneous manufactured articles mainly jewellery, goldsmiths' and silversmiths' wares (-5.7 percent). However, an increase was registered in shipments of electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof (+3.5 percent).
Imports from all major suppliers fell, in particular from Switzerland (-22.1 percent), India (-13.7 percent), Japan (-9.9 percent), Taiwan (-8.6 percent) and Malaysia (-7.9 percent) and China (-0.1 percent). Purchases decreased mostly for miscellaneous manufactured articles mainly jewellery, goldsmiths' and silversmiths' wares (-11.0 percent); petroleum products and related materials (-29.1 percent) and office machines and automatic data processing machines (-7.2 percent). However, a year-on-year increase was registered in imports of telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment (+7.4 percent).