Macao registered a trade deficit of 20.67 billion patacas (2.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months of 2009, an increase of 3.9 percent over the same period of last year, according to the figures released on Friday by the city's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

From January to September, total value of local merchandise exports dropped significantly by 55.1 percent year-on-year to 5.78 billion patacas (732 million dollars), of which the value of domestic exports and re-exports declined by 69.5 percent and 32.5 percent respectively, while that of merchandise imports slid by 19. 3 percent to 26.45 billion patacas (3.35 billion dollars), the DSEC figures indicated.

As a result, the exports/imports ratio went down by 17.4 percentage points year-on-year to 21.9 percent in the period.

Analyzed by destination of Macao's exports, the value of merchandise exports to the U.S., the EU and Chinese mainland respectively decreased by 79.3 percent, 59.6 percent and 45.4 percent year-on-year in the period.

The value of textile and garment exports declined by 72.7 percent year-on-year to account for 35.7 percent of the total exports of goods, while the value of non-textile exports dropped by 30.3 percent.

Regarding the country of origin of imported goods, the value of merchandise imports from the Chinese mainland dropped by 38.2 percent year-on-year, but that from the EU rose by 5.4 percent.