Hong Kong's total goods exports in the first seven months of this year grew 8.9 percent on the same period in 2005.

According to a government press release Friday, within this total, re-exports rose 7.9 percent and domestic exports grew by 26. 6 percent while imports of goods rose 10.9 percent.

A visible trade deficit of 85.2 billion HK dollars (10.92 billion U.S. dollars), equivalent to 6.0 percent of the value of imports of goods, was recorded in the first seven months of 2006.

Total goods exports grew to 219.6 billion HK dollars (28.15 billion U.S. dollars) in July, up 10.7 percent on the same month last year. Goods imports rose to 224.7 billion HK dollars (28.81 billion U.S. dollars), up 11.4 percent and marking a 5.2 billion HK dollars (666.7 million U.S. dollars) visible trade deficit.

Merchandise exports grew faster in July, showing the Chinese mainland market's buoyance, and continued improvement in other East Asian markets. Exports to the United States showed a moderate rebound, but those to the Europe and Japan were slack.

Concurrently, significant increases were recorded in domestic exports to most major destinations, particularly Italy (264.3 percent), Germany (132 percent) and the Netherlands (129.8 percent) .

Over the same comparison periods, increases were recorded in imports from all major suppliers, particularly Taiwan (26.3 percent), Singapore (21.1 percent), Thailand (20.7 percent) and the Chinese mainland (12.1 percent).

Source: Xinhua