Hong Kong GDP vs GNI in 2026: did the terms of trade add to the city's income?

Hong Kong’s export figures in 2026 look like a boom: the value of goods exports rose 64.9% in September from a year earlier. The question here is whether that boom made the city richer through prices, as it did for chip producers, or mainly through volume. National accounts can answer part of it.

What is the difference between GDP, GNI and GDI?

GDP measures what is produced in Hong Kong; GNI measures what Hong Kong residents earn, wherever they earn it; GDI adjusts GDP for what the city’s exports can buy. GNI adds income from abroad, such as dividends and interest on overseas investments, and subtracts income paid to non-residents. GDI keeps GDP’s coverage but adds a “trading gain” when export prices rise faster than import prices, and a “trading loss” when they rise more slowly.

A simple example of the GDI idea: if a shipment of chips used to pay for 100 barrels of oil and chip prices then rise 20% while oil rises 10%, the same shipment pays for about 109 barrels. Production has not changed, but purchasing power has. That is the terms of trade.

Hong Kong publishes GDP and GNI every quarter. CapsWindow could not find an official real GDI or trading gain series for Hong Kong, so this note uses GNI for income from abroad and the C&SD terms of trade index for prices. They answer different questions, as the sections below show.

How fast did Hong Kong’s income grow compared with its output?

In the second quarter of 2026 real GNI grew 5.3% year on year and real GDP 4.3% (C&SD, 14 September 2026).

Real GNI growth (5.3%) minus real GDP growth (4.3%), Q2 2026, year on year. CapsWindow calculation from C&SD figures

The gap has swung widely over the last six quarters:

Visual guide

How fast did Hong Kong’s income grow compared with its output?

Real GDP, year on year

• Q1 20253.1%
• Q2 20253.1%
• Q3 20253.8%
• Q4 20253.8%
• Q1 20265.9%
• Q2 20264.3%

05.9

Quarter	Real GDP, year on year	Real GNI, year on year	GNI minus GDP (CapsWindow calculation)
Q1 2025	3.1%	4.0%	+0.9 pp
Q2 2025	3.1%	3.6%	+0.5 pp
Q3 2025	3.8%	0.2%	−3.6 pp
Q4 2025	3.8%	5.1%	+1.3 pp
Q1 2026	5.9%	3.9%	−2.0 pp
Q2 2026	4.3%	5.3%	+1.0 pp

Each row uses the GDP growth figure published in the same C&SD GNI release (Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026). GDP has since been revised: the August 2026 tables show 3.2% for Q1 2025, 3.3% for Q2 2025 and 4.0% for Q4 2025. For 2025 as a whole real GNI grew 3.0% and real GDP 3.6%.

The size of the gap in money terms is large. In Q2 2026 nominal GNI was HK$966.1 billion and GDP HK$842.4 billion, so residents earned HK$123.7 billion more than the economy produced, equal to 14.7% of GDP. C&SD attributes this “mainly” to a net inflow of investment income. Primary income received from abroad was HK$664.6 billion, 40.6% of it from the Chinese Mainland, against HK$540.9 billion paid out (C&SD Table A).

So Hong Kong’s GNI-minus-GDP gap mostly reflects dividends, profits and interest crossing the border. Those flows depend on company earnings and markets, which is why the gap can turn from +1.3 to −2.0 points within a quarter. It is not a measure of the terms of trade.

Did trade prices add to Hong Kong’s income?

Barely. The terms of trade index rose 0.3% in January to August 2026 from a year earlier, while export prices rose 10.1% and import prices 9.8% (C&SD, 15 October 2026). C&SD derives the index from the ratio of the export price index to the import price index for goods.

Period	Export prices, year on year	Import prices, year on year	Terms of trade index, year on year
2025 as a whole	+2.3%	+2.2%	virtually unchanged
Q1 2026	+4.3%	+4.3%	virtually unchanged
June 2026	+13.6%	+12.7%	+0.8%
July 2026	+13.7%	+13.6%	+0.1%
August 2026	+18.7%	+18.0%	+0.6%
January to August 2026	+10.1%	+9.8%	+0.3%

Sources: C&SD monthly volume and price releases for December 2025, March, June, July and August 2026. September prices had not been released at the time of writing.

Change in Hong Kong's terms of trade index for goods, January to August 2026 against the same period of 2025 (C&SD)

The reason is the structure of the trade. Hong Kong’s total exports include re-exports, goods that arrive and leave again. In September 2026 exports of electrical machinery and parts rose by HK$155.6 billion from a year earlier and imports of the same division by HK$153.5 billion (C&SD, 28 October 2026). When chip and server prices rise, Hong Kong pays more for them on the way in and charges more on the way out. The two price indices move almost together.

This index does not give a dollar amount. A true trading gain would need GDP-weighted export and import deflators, which Hong Kong does not publish as a separate series. With an index change of 0.3%, though, any effect is small next to the figures in the next section.

How does this compare with Korea and the oil importers?

Korea shows what a large terms-of-trade gain looks like. Its real GDI grew 18.8% year on year in the third quarter of 2026, against real GDP growth of 3.4%, the fastest GDI growth since the fourth quarter of 1977. The Bank of Korea’s trading gain from terms-of-trade changes went from −10.9 trillion won in Q3 2025 to +77.5 trillion won in Q3 2026 (Bank of Korea ECOS, table 200Y106). Korea manufactures the memory chips whose prices rose, and buys oil.

	Korea	Hong Kong
Latest real GDP growth	3.4% (Q3 2026)	4.3% (Q2 2026)
Income measure	Real GDI +18.8% (Q3 2026)	Real GNI +5.3% (Q2 2026)
Official trading gain or loss	+77.5 trillion won (Q3 2026)	Not published
Terms of trade signal	Large gain	Index +0.3% (January to August 2026)
Main source of the income gap	Export prices of chips	Net investment income from abroad

The Korean and Hong Kong measures cover different quarters and are defined differently, so the rows are side by side, not directly comparable.

Hong Kong sits in between the chip producers and the oil importers. It is on the buying side of the chip price rise: in August 2026 prices of goods imported from Korea were up 37.9% and from Taiwan 30.2%. It also passes those prices on in exports. On oil, the government said in May that the city’s “low energy intensity as a predominantly service-oriented economy, with stable energy supplies from the Chinese Mainland” helps mitigate the shock (HKSAR Government, 15 May 2026). The goods price index above does not show a terms-of-trade loss from oil either.

Where did the extra income go?

The data available point mainly to companies and investors rather than wages. The largest part of the GNI gap is investment income. In Q2 2026 direct investment income received rose 9.5%, which C&SD explains as higher earnings of some prominent local enterprises from their direct investment abroad.

Households saw slower growth. Real private consumption rose 2.8% in Q2 2026, below GDP growth of 4.3%. Average monthly employment earnings of full-time employees (excluding foreign domestic helpers) rose 2.3% in nominal terms, while underlying consumer prices rose 1.7% (HKSAR Government, 14 August 2026). The simple difference is about +0.6 points in real terms (CapsWindow calculation; the two series are defined differently). The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.7%.

These figures do not show how much of the investment income reaches households through dividends, pensions or MPF funds. Comparing a lump sum across savings, gold and other bases is one way to see how differently the same income can grow.

Compare how a HKD amount grows on different bases →