Macao's trade deficit for the first five months of this year amounted to 10.74 billion patacas (1.34 billion U.S. dollars), according to the figures released Monday by the SAR's (Special Administrative Region) Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

The figures showed that total export of goods fell by 8.6 percent year-on-year to 7.02 billion patacas (878 million dollars)in the period, while total import of goods grew by 7.9 percent to 17.76 billion patacas (2.2 billion dollars), bringing about a 7.2-percentage-point decrease in the exports/imports ratio over the same period of last year.

Textile and garment remained the major items of local exports, accounting for 59.1 percent of the total between January and May this year, but its exports declined by 13.2 percent year-on-year in the period.

Meanwhile, the value of non-textile exports fell slightly by one percent in the period, of which exports of machines and apparatus, and footwear dropped by 48.4 percent and 51 percent respectively, while exports of image and sound appliances rose by 70.9 percent, according to the figures.

As for export markets, the SAR's value of exports to the United States, the Chinese mainland and the European Union decreased by four percent, 39.9 percent and 37.8 percent respectively year-on-year for the period, while that to Hong Kong rose by 26.1 percent, according to the DSEC.

In addition, DSEC figures also indicated that the main suppliers of imported goods to Macao were mainly in the Asian region, as the value of imports from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, comprising 51.3 percent of the total imports in the period, rose by 3.4 percent and 14.7 percent respectively year-on-year.