Online trade fair traffic jumps 20pc

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council said its online exhibition traffic had jumped 20 percent from a year ago between April and July, involving 4.2 million buyers.

In view of the Covid-19 pandemic, the council has migrated nine physical exhibitions - originally scheduled to be held by the end of July - onto an online platform.

Deputy executive director Benjamin Chau Kai-leung said the one-month Summer Virtual Expo, ended on July 24, had helped more than 22,000 suppliers connect with buyers from around the world.

He added that the council is also holding another Summer Sourcing Weeks event from yesterday until August 7, and it has already attracted more than 1,300 exhibitors.

Meanwhile, the Census and Statistics Department released June's external merchandise trade statistics yesterday, with the values of Hong Kong's total exports and imports of goods seeing a year-on-year decrease of 1.3 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively.

The value of total exports of goods in June decreased to HK$305.6 billion, while the value of imports of goods also dropped to HK$338.9 billion.

A visible trade deficit of HK$33.3 billion was recorded, equivalent to 9.8 percent of the value of imports of goods.

Geographically, the total exports to Taiwan and mainland China in June grew by 21.6 percent and 8.8 percent year-on-year, respectively. However, exports to the United States, the European Union and many other major Asian markets fell by varying degrees, from minus 38.3 percent to minus 15.6 percent.

For the second quarter as a whole, the value of merchandise exports fell by 4.3 percent from a year earlier, visibly narrower than the decline of 9.7 percent in the first quarter.