In April of 2013, the value of total exports of goods increased by 9.0 percent over a year earlier to $290.3 billion, after a year-on-year increase of 11.2 percent in March of 2013. Concurrently, the value of imports of goods increased by 7.7 percent over a year earlier to $333.0 billion, after a year-on-year increase of 11.3 percent in March of 2013.
Year-on-year, total exports to Asia as a whole grew by 11.6 percent. In this region, increases were registered in the values of total exports to some major destinations, in particular the mainland of China (+15.7 percent), Vietnam (+15.6 percent), Singapore (+7.1 percent), India (+4.7 percent) and Korea (+3.1 percent). On the other hand, decreases were recorded in the values of total exports to Taiwan (-14.9 percent), Malaysia (-8.1 percent) and Japan (-6.2 percent).
Apart from destinations in Asia, decreases were registered in the values of total exports to some major destinations in other regions, in particular the United Kingdom (-13.7 percent), the USA (-3.6 percent) and Germany (-3.0 percent).
On a year-over-year basis, increases were registered in the values of total exports of some principal commodity divisions, in particular "telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment" (by 26.0 percent), "electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, and electrical parts thereof" (by 15.2 percent) and "non-metallic mineral manufactures" (by 35.3 percent). However, a decrease was registered in the value of total exports of "office machines and automatic data processing machines" (by -13.0 percent).
Over the same period of comparison, increases were registered in the values of imports of most principal commodity divisions, in particular "professional, scientific and controlling instruments and apparatus" (by 71.7 percent).
A Government spokesman commented further that the sustained tepid performance of the major advanced economy markets underlines a still rather unsteady external environment, which might weigh on regional export activities going forward. Hong Kong's export performance will in turn be affected. We will monitor the developments closely.