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5th December, 2008
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s total trade for the first ten months hit the RM1 trillion mark, although exports in October fell 2.6 percent to RM53.46 billion compared with the corresponding month in 2007, while imports dropped by 5.3 percent to RM43.84 billion.
In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) said this has resulted in a total trade of RM97.3 billion for the month, a decrease of 3.8 percent from a year ago.
Miti said on a month-on-month basis, October exports were 14.2 percent lower than September’s, while imports shrank 7.8 percent.
It said the main contributors to the lower exports were the electrical and electronic products and commodities, namely refined and crude petroleum as well as palm oil.
Trade surplus in October fell to RM9.62 billion from RM14.74 billion in September, it said.
The five major exports in October were electrical and electronic products (RM19.71 billion), liquefied natural gas (RM4.4 billion), crude petroleum (RM3.9 billion), palm oil (RM3.68 billion) and chemical and chemical products (RM3.23 billion).
Singapore, US, Japan, China and Thailand were the top five export destinations, accounting for 51.7 percent of the total.
Miti said exports to Asean, which accounted for a quarter of the total exports, fell 6.1 percent to RM13.6 billion in October.
It said exports to US fell to RM6.44 billion in October from RM7.94 billion in the corresponding month of 2007, while those destined for European Union dropped 11.4 percent to RM6.1 billion, with decline in the export of electrical and electronic products being the major reason.
“Exports to China fell to RM4.89 billion in October from RM5.26 billion in the same month a year ago, due to lower exports of palm oil, crude rubber, manufactures of metal and refined petroleum products.
“However, exports to Japan increased 33.4 percent to RM6 billion with liquefied natural gas and wood products as the main contributors,” it said.
Miti said other markets which registered significant increases in exports were India (+10.7 percent to RM2.45 billion) as a result of higher exports of petroleum and palm oil and United Arab Emirates (+52.6 percent to RM1.13 billion) due to higher exports of jewellery as well as iron and steel products.
However, it said, following the strong performance for the first nine months, Malaysia’s total trade for January to October period has surpassed the RM1 trillion mark with exports expanding by 13.9 percent to RM565.66 billion and imports increased by 7.4 percent to RM446.81 billion.
“Total trade for the 10 months was RM1.012 trillion, an increase of 11 percent compared with the same period last year,” it said.
On imports, Miti said, the October figures were lower due to lower imports of capital goods and intermediate goods.
It said top five sources of imports were China (RM5.92 billion), Japan (RM5.80 billion), US (RM5.11 billion), Singapore (RM4.57 billion) and Thailand (RM2.64 billion).
Total imports from Asean decreased by 11.1 percent to RM9.84 billion or 22.5 percent of the total, it said.
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