Tonga - Foreign trade
Tonga suffers from chronic trade deficits. Vegetables, including squash, are Tonga's main export commodities (54%). Other exports include fish (15%), spices and vanilla (13%), and shellfish (3.8%).
In 1995 Tonga's imports were distributed among the following categories:
| Consumer goods | 13.8% |
| Food | 25.0% |
| Fuels | 12.3% |
| Industrial supplies | 30.2% |
| Machinery | 11.7% |
| Transportation | 6.6% |
| Other | 0.3% |
Principal trading partners in 1998 (in millions of US dollars) were as follows:
| COUNTRY | EXPORTS | IMPORTS | BALANCE |
| India | 18 | n.a. | n.a. |
| Japan | 7 | 8 | -1 |
| United States | 6 | 13 | -7 |
| Fiji | 1 | 18 | -17 |
| Australia | 1 | 10 | -9 |
| Samoa | 1 | n.a. | n.a. |
| United Kingdom | n.a. | 2 | n.a. |
| China (inc. Hong Kong) | n.a. | 1 | n.a. |
| New Zealand | n.a. | 21 | n.a. |
| Indonesia | n.a. | 1 | n.a. |