MACAO, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Macao's total value of merchandise export in first quarter of 2017 increased by 8.8 percent year-on-year to 2.94 billion patacas (about 367 million U.S. dollars), and import grew by 6.5 percent to 18 billion patacas (about 2.25 billion dollars), the special administrative region's statistics department said on Friday.
Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that among the total export amount, domestic exports and re-exports rose by 15.4 percent and 7.7 percent respectively. Merchandise trade deficit widened to 15.06 billion patacas (about 1.88 billion dollars) for the first quarter of 2017.
As for March 2017 alone, the merchandise export amounted to 1.07 billion patacas (about 134 million dollars), up by 4.8 percent year-on-year; value of re-exports (912 million patacas, about 114 million dollars) increased by 5.2 percent, with that of Wine (51 million patacas, about 6.37 million dollars) surging by 341.4 percent.
Total merchandise import in March grew by 19 percent year-on-year to 6.41 billion (about 800 million dollars), of which imports of Watches and Gold jewelry expanded by 64.8 percent and 47.1 percent respectively. Merchandise trade deficit amounted to 5.35 billion patacas (about 668 million dollars).
