Hong Kong:Strong trade growth in November

Main points:

Both exports and imports improved in November compared with October. Afterseasonal adjustment, November exports expanded 7.9% (seasonally adjusted by GS,non-annualized) from the previous month vs -3.9% mom sa in October. Novemberimports also increased by 5.5% mom sa vs -3.5% mom sa in October. Theimprovement in export growth is broadly based across almost all major destinationcountries. Exports to mainland China went up 11.9% from the same period last yearvs +0.1% yoy in October. Year-over-year growth of exports to other destinations suchas Japan, Taiwan, India, Singapore and Korea also accelerated. Exports to the UScontracted compared with one year ago, down 7.6% yoy in November vs +0.3% yoyin October. As Hong Kong is an entrepot trade centre, import growth is thus closelylinked to export growth. Imports from mainland China were up 2.4% yoy inNovember vs -8.0% yoy in October, and imports from other countries such as Japan,Taiwan, Korea and the US also improved from October. Imports by product datashowed that better imports of “electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, andelectrical parts thereof” are the major driver for the acceleration of headline importyear-over-year growth in November. “Electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances,