Macau’s imports of mobile phones rose by 803 percent year-on-year to 1.09 billion patacas last month, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) announced yesterday.
Gold jewellery imports increased by 670 percent to 683 million patacas, while imports of beauty, cosmetic and skincare products grew by 586 percent to 1.65 billion patacas.
Imports of watches rose by 449.8 percent to 1.04 billion patacas.
Total imports increased by 175 percent to 11.42 billion patacas, while exports rose by 26.7 percent to 1.3 billion patacas, resulting in a merchandise trade balance deficit of 10.12 billion patacas. Re-exports accounted for 87.2 percent of all exports.
Analysts contacted by The Macau Post Daily said the huge increase in imports indicated that the local economy is set for a rapid recovery from its COVID-19 woes.
In the first quarter, Macau’s imports rose by 82.5 percent to 29.74 billion patacas, while exports increased by 15.1 percent to 3.46 billion patacas.
In the first three months of the year, nearly three quarters of Macau’s exports were shipped to Hong Kong. Most of Macau’s imports originated from the Chinese mainland (33.8 percent), France (15.2 percent), Italy (13.6 percent), and Switzerland (9.3 percent).
