Brunei Darussalam’s exports in November 2021 has risen by 144 per cent when compared to the same period last year, according to the International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS) report published by the Department of Economic Planning and Statistics (JPES) recently.
The department said in November 2021, the total export was valued at BND1,331.4 million compared to BND545.7 million in November 2020.
This was mainly due to increases in mineral fuels exports from BND405.8 million to to BND1,080.9 million and chemical exports from BND118.6 million to BND217.9 million, said the department
The department said there was increase in the value of exports of crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petroleum products from the downstream activities.
Crude oil had a significant increase in average price (from USD41.32 per barrel in November 2020 to USD 83.91 per barrel in November 2021) as well as an increase in exported volume from 48.73 thousand barrels to 67.63 thousand barrels.
LNG prices had also increased during that time, from USD6.06 per MMBtu in November 2020 to USD10.94 in November 2021. The amount exported has also increased, from 675,165 MMBtu per day to 769,174 per day.
Meanwhile, the exports value of petroleum products from downstream activities increased from BND175.8 million to BND507.6 million, of which the main commodity was automotive diesel fuels.
Overall, total trade in November 2021 has increased by 86.1 per cent compared to the same month last year (from BND1,263.4 million to BND2,351.7 million). It has also increased 3.7 per cent compared to October 2021.
In terms of commodity by section, mineral fuels represents the major contributor to Brunei Darussalam’s exports (81.2 per cent), followed by chemicals (16.4 per cent), and machinery and transport equipment (0.8 per cent).
The main exports market in November 2021 was Australia (22.9 per cent) followed by Japan (21.3 per cent) and Singapore (16.6 per cent).
The largest export commodity to Australia, Japan, and Singapore was mineral fuels.
For imports, the total value increased to BND1,020.3 million (November 2021) from BND717.7 million (November 2020) mainly due to a significant increase in imports of mineral fuels.
The five main imports by commodity were mineral fuels (68.4 per cent), followed by machinery and transport equipment (11.6 per cent), Food (6.2 per cent), chemicals (5.3 per cent) and manufactured goods (4.1 per cent).
In the end use category, imports of intermediate goods accounted for 57.9 per cent of the total imports, followed by capital goods (37.9 per cent) and consumption goods (4.2 per cent).
For imports by trading partners, the highest share was from Malaysia (34.3 per cent), followed by Russia (26.7 per cent), and Japan (12.6 per cent), with mineral fuels as the largest import commodity.
According to the mode of transport, in November 2021, the highest share for both exports and imports was transport by sea, which amounted to BND2,246.4 million (95.5 per cent).
This was followed by air transport (BND76.1 million or 3.2 per cent) and via land (BND29.2 million or 1.2 per cent).
