KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s December exports rose to RM54.67 billion, the highest since September 2008, as exports of electrical and electronic products and crude petroleum picked up.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry said today the exports were higher than the RM50.06 billion in November 2009 and RM46.07 billion in December 2008.

Imports in December 2009 were RM42.57 billion compared with RM41.18 billion in the preceding month of November and also above the RM34.53 billion in December 2008.

The trade surplus for December was RM12.09 billion.

For January to December 2009, exports totalled RM553.29 billion, a decline from the RM663.49 billion in 2008 while imports for 2009 were RM434.94 billion compared with RM521.61 billion in 2008.

Miti, elaborating on the external trade data, said Malaysia’s exports in December 2009 expanded by 9.2% to RM54.67 billion in the preceding month while imports rose 3.4% to RM42.58 billion on-month.

“On a year-on-year basis, exports expanded by 18.7% while imports rose by 23.3%. Consequently, total trade registered an increase of 20.7% from a year ago,” it said.

In the fourth quarter, exports expanded by 10.6% to RM159 billion while imports rose 8% to RM126.55 billion.

Asean bought RM14.22 billion or 26% of Malaysia's total exports in December. Among Asean countries, RM7.53 billion worth of goods were shipped to Singapore. This also pushed Singapore up the top of list of export countries.

MITI said China bought RM7.33 billion worth of products, mostly E&E products, crude petroleum, chemicals and chemical products, rubber products and liquefied natural gas.

Exports to the European Union were RM6.11 billion while exports to Japan were RM5.57 billion, to the US RM5.46 billion, and Hong Kong RM2.84 billion.