The country’s merchandise imports grew at a slower pace in October mainly because of the continued drop of electronic product order from abroad, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).

Data from NSO showed that total merchandise imports for October were up by 2.3 percent to $5.019 billion from a year ago’s $4.904 billion. In September, imports were up by 10.4 percent year-on-year.

Month-on-month, imports dropped by 1.1 percent from $5.076 billion in September this year. This led imports in the first 10 months of the year to grow by 12.2 percent to $50.521 billion compared with $45.028 billion during the same period last year.

The country’s trade deficit in October stood at $932million, bringing the 10-month tally to $9.228 billion.

Electronics, which accounted for 24.6 percent of the total import bill, declined by 19.9 percent to $1.235 billion from $1.542 billion last year.

Imports of mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials amounted to $1.159 billion, up by 28.4 percent over last year’s $902.82 million.

Industrial machinery and equipment imports reached $267.20 million, an annual growth of 13.4 percent from last year’s $235.60 million.

Imports of iron and steel rose 38.6 percent to $132.89 million from $95.89 million in 2010.

Purchases of transport equipment dropped by 9.1 percent to $337.49 million from $371.32 million posted a year ago.

Rounding up the list of the top 10 imports were plastics in primary and non-primary forms amounting to $123.77 million; organic and inorganic chemicals, $122.39 million; telecommunication equipment and electrical machinery including telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus and equipment, $98.90 million; cereals and cereal preparations, $84.94 million; and medicinal and pharmaceutical products, $78.25 million.

Payment for the country’s top 10 imports for October reached $3.640 billion or 72.5 percent of the total import bill.

Japan remained the country’s biggest source of imports in October with $606.42 million, an increase of 0.8 percent from $601.36 million last year. The US was the second biggest source of imports at $493.68 million, higher than last year’s $481.58 million.Imports from People’s Republic of China amounted to $476.34 million, higher by about 9 percent from $437.16 million in 2010.

Other major sources of imports for October were Singapore, $407.08 million; Republic of Korea, $402.91 million; Saudi Arabia, $335.25 million; Taiwan, $327.80 million; Thailand, $287.20 million; Malaysia, including Sabah and Sarawak, $271.41 million; and Indonesia, $232.63 million.

Payments for imports from the top 10 sources for October amounted to $3.841 billion or about 76.5 percent of the total.