The volume of total goods exports grew 8.9% in December over a year earlier, while the volume of goods imports rose 18%, the Census & Statistics Department says. The volume of goods re-exports rose 9.5% while domestic exports fell 10.8%.

Last year the volume of goods re-exports fell 11.3% on the previous year, while that of domestic exports dropped 34.6%. Taken together, the volume of total goods exports fell 12% and the volume of goods imports dropped 9.4%.

Comparing December last year to a year earlier, the prices of goods re-exports rose 1.2% while domestic exports dropped 0.5%. Taken together, the prices of total goods exports rose 1.2% and the prices of goods imports grew 1.8%.

The prices of goods re-exports increased 1.2% and those of domestic exports fell 0.2%. Taken together, the prices of goods exports rose 1.1% while the prices of goods imports fell 0.1%.

Trade index

The terms of the trade index fell 0.6% in December over the same period in 2008.

The month saw the total export volume to Taiwan grow 49.8%. The total export volume to the Mainland and Japan rose 14.2% and 5.3%. The total export volume to the US and Germany dropped 6.2% and 14.5%.

Total export prices to Taiwan, the Mainland, Japan and Germany rose 3.1%, 2.6%, 0.8% and 0.2%, and dropped 1.1% to the US.

Import volume from Taiwan rose 53.2%. Double-digit growth was recorded for the import volume from Singapore (20.8%), the US (16.8%), Japan (15.5%) and the Mainland (12.3%).

The import prices from Singapore, the US and Taiwan rose 15%, 2% and 1.7%, while the import prices from the Mainland remained unchanged and the import prices from Japan fell 0.3%.