Macau’s trade deficit in January improved by 3.4% year on year to 5.586 billion patacas (US$698 million), reported the region’s Statistics and Census Bureau.

In the first month of the year Macau exported goods worth 971 million patacas, a marginal drop of 0.4% compared to January 2016, and imported products whose value amounted to 6.557 billion patacas, or a contraction of 2.9%.

Consequently, the import-export coverage rate increased from 16.86% in January 2016 to 17.38% in the first month of 2017.

Imports from mainland China and the European Union registered in January, of 2.33 billion and 1.68 billion patacas, registered annual variations of -13.0% and + 6.4%, and those from the Portuguese-speaking countries increased 22.8% to 62 million patacas. (macauhub)