MACAO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Macao's total value of merchandise export from January to July of 2018 increased 5.6 percent year-on-year, while import in first seven months also went up 24.4 percent, the special administrative region's statistic department said on Friday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that from January to July, the total value of merchandise export rose 5.6 percent year-on-year to 7.11 billion patacas (about 880 million U.S. dollars), of which value of re-exports grew 8.6 percent, but that of domestic exports declined 10.9 percent.

Total value of merchandise import jumped 24.4 percent year-on-year to 50.90 billion patacas (about 6.30 billion dollars). The trade deficit widened to 43.79 billion patacas (about 5.42 billion dollars) for the first seven months.

The report added that merchandise export to the Nine Provinces of the Pan Pearl River Delta increased 3.5 percent year-on-year in the first seven months, but exports to Shanghai dropped 82.6 percent, resulting in a 3.9-percent decrease in exports to Chinese mainland.

The import from Chinese mainland and the European Union rallied 29.4 percent and 21.2 percent respectively year-on-year, to 17.45 billion patacas (about 2.16 billion dollars) and 12.81 billion patacas (about 1.59 billion dollars) in the first seven months.