HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s exports increased unexpectedly in November after falling in the previous month, figures from the Census and Statistics Department showed Thursday. The value of exports grew 8.1 percent year-over-year in November, reversing a 1.8 percent drop in October. Meanwhile, economists had expected exports to fall further by 1.0 percent. Within this total, the value of re-exports climbed 8.2 percent and domestic exports went up by 3.7 percent. Imports expanded 7.6 percent annually in November, much faster than the 0.5 percent rise in the prior month. That was also well above the 0.6 percent increase expected by economists.
The visible trade deficit widened slightly to HK$34.1 billion in November from HK$33.1 billion in the same month of 2015. The expected shortfall for the month was HK$40.5 billion. “Looking ahead, the external trading environment, having stabilized recently, is still subject to various uncertainties, including those arising from the US interest rate normalization, monetary policy divergence among major central banks, fragile recoveries of some advanced economies, future US trade policy direction, unfolding of Brexit and heightened geopolitical tensions in various regions,” a government spokesman said.
