Macau’s imports fell 30.3 percent year-on-year to 3.87 billion patacas last month, when total exports (domestic exports plus re-exports) dipped 1.4 percent to 911 million patacas, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) said in a statement yesterday.
Last month’s imports fell to the lowest since March 2011, according to the statement.
Macau’s economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis since late January.
However, according to the bureau, imports of certain textile products, mostly facemasks, leapt 854.6 percent year-on-year, while imports of pharmaceutical products increased 57.6 percent.
Imports of gold jewellery and watches fell 73.9 percent and 57.9 percent to 94.1 million patacas and 218 million patacas respectively. Both products are particularly popular with visitors from the Chinese mainland. Mobile phone imports dropped 68.3 percent to 123.5 million patacas.
In the first two months, exports fell 16.0 percent to 2.06 billion patacas (re-exports accounted for 89.1 percent of total exports), while imports dropped 14.1 percent to 12.3 billion patacas.
