Hong Kong Trade Gap Narrows In August

SmartForexNews

MT5-Hong Kong's visible trade deficit narrowed to HK$36.03 billion in August from HK$40.13 billion in July, the Census and Statistics Department said in a report on Tuesday.

The value of total exports increased at a pace of 0.6 percent year-on-year after falling 3.5 percent in July. At the same time, imports climbed 0.9 percent, reversing a 1.8 percent drop in the prior month.

For the first eight months of 2012 as a whole, total exports of goods dropped slightly by 0.2 percent. Concurrently, imports of goods rose 0.9 percent. A visible trade deficit of HK$297.8 billion, equivalent to 11.9 percent of the value of imports of goods, was recorded in the first eight months of 2012.

A government spokesman commented that looking ahead, the persistently weak fundamentals of the advanced economies, including those relating to the debt crisis in the Eurozone, will continue to cast a shadow over the global economic outlook.

As such Hong Kong's external trading environment will likely remain difficult in the near term, spokesman added.

Published: 2012-09-25 08:56:00 UTC+00 3 hours, 52 min. ago