In October 2021, Brunei Darussalam’s total trade was valued at BND2,268.4 million, an increase by 54.3 per cent from BND1,470.0 million during the same month last year.
Meanwhile, for month-to-month changes, total trade for October 2021 decreased by 3.3 per cent compared to September 2021.
Total exports increased by 159.8 per cent year-on-year to BND1,397.5 million compared to BND537.9 million in October 2020. This was mainly due to the increase in mineral fuels exports to BND1,103.7 million (October 2021) from BND442.3 million (October 2020), and chemicals exports to BND266.5 million (October 2021) from BND88.3 million (October 2020).
The increase in mineral fuels exports was largely due to an increase in the value of exports of crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petroleum products from the downstream activities.
The increase in exports of crude oil was attributed to a significant increase in average price to USD85.40 per barrel (October 2021) from USD39.11 per barrel (October 2020). The increase in the exports of LNG was due to an increase in the average price to USD11.81 per MMBtu (October 2021) from USD5.51 per MMBtu (October 2020). The exports value of petroleum products from downstream activities increased to BND482.9 million (October 2021) from BND127.6 million (October 2020), of which the main commodity was automotive diesel fuels.
In terms of commodity by section, mineral fuels represents the major contributor to Brunei Darussalam’s exports (79.0 per cent), followed by chemicals (19.1 per cent), and machinery and transport equipment (0.8 per cent).
The main exports market in October 2021 was China (27.4 per cent) followed by Australia (24.1 per cent) and Singapore (21.0 per cent). The largest export commodity to China was chemicals followed by mineral fuels. Meanwhile, the largest export to Australia and Singapore was mineral fuels. For imports, the total value decreased to BND870.9 million (October 2021) from BND932.1 million (October 2020) mainly due to a decline in imports of machinery and transport equipment and chemicals.
The five main imports by commodity were mineral fuels (69.9 per cent), followed by machinery and transport equipment (9.3 per cent), food (6.4 per cent), manufactured goods (5.6 per cent) and chemicals (4.2 per cent). By End Use Category, imports of intermediate goods accounted for 56.7 per cent of the total imports, followed by capital goods (39.3 per cent) and consumption goods (4.0 per cent).
For imports by trading partners, the highest share was from Australia (17.5 per cent), followed by Japan (15.8 per cent), and Russia (13.4 per cent), with mineral fuels as the largest import commodity.
