Macao registered a trade deficit of 3.85 billion patacas (481 million U.S. dollars) for the first two months of 2008 and its export/import ratio deceased by 11.2 percentage points year-on-year, according to trade figures released Monday by Macao's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The figures showed that the city's total value of goods exports fell by 10 percent year-on-year to 2.66 billion patacas (333 million U.S. dollars) while import value grew by 14.7 percent to 6.51 billion patacas (814 million U.S. dollars).

The figure also showed that the exports of textile and garment in the first two months of 2008, accounting for 62.3 percent of the total, declined by 13.9 percent over the same period of last year.

The United States and the European Union remained the major destinations of Macao's exports, together making up 58.5 percent of the total in the period, and compared with the same period of 2007, the value of exports to the two regions decreased by 7.2 percent and 26.8 percent respectively, according to the DSEC.

(Xinhua News Agency, April 1, 2008)