BRUNEI Darussalam’s total trade in February 2019 increased by 6.8 per cent to BND1,038.9 million, compared to February 2018, said the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE), Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE), in a statement released yesterday.

According to the JPKE, total exports increased year-on-year (y-o-y), by 8.1 per cent to BND701.9 million.

The increase was supported mainly by 10.8 per cent increase in the export of Crude Oil and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

Total imports increased by 4.3 per cent to BND337.0 million.

The five main import commodities were Machinery and Transport Equipment (40.7 per cent), followed by Manufactured Goods (19.2 per cent), Food (12.1 per cent), Chemicals (9.1 per cent) and Mineral Fuels (9.1 per cent).

By End Use category, imports of Intermediate Goods comprised 58.3 per cent of the total imports followed by imports of Capital goods (34.0 per cent) and Consumption Goods (7.7 per cent).

The main export market for Brunei Darussalam in February 2019 was Japan (51.2 per cent) followed by Australia (15.3 per cent) and Malaysia (8.6 per cent).

For imports by trading partners, the highest share was from the People’s Republic of China (30.4 per cent), followed by Malaysia (16.7 per cent) and Singapore (16.1 per cent).

The International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS) for Brunei Darussalam adopts the General System for recording trade statistics, which covers imports, domestic exports, and re-exports.

The IMTS full report for February 2019 is available on JPKE’s website at www.depd.gov.bn.