Timber and wooden articles this January remained Latvia's leading export products, accounting for one-third or 32.3 percent of total exports, reported the Latvian national statistics office. Textiles made up 16.3 percent of all Latvian exports in the first month of this year, metals and metal works stood at 12.4 percent, and machinery, mechanical and electric equipment at 6.3 percent. Year-on-year, Latvian timber exports increased by 9.7 percent, textile exports rose by 23.1 percent, metal and metal works exports by 18.7 percent, exports of chemical industry products by 31.9 percent and exports of miscellaneous manufactured goods (mostly furniture) by 23.7 percent. At the same time, exports of machinery, mechanical and electric equipment this January fell by 10.9 percent from last year and exports of wood pulp, paper and cardboard dropped 27 percent. In January 2003 Latvia exported goods for 112.772 million lats (EUR 176.76 mln) and imported 188.469 million lats worth of products. Machinery, mechanical and electrical equipment prevailed among Latvian imports this January, accounting for 19.5 percent of the total. Mineral products made up 14.6 percent, means of transport 10.2 percent, chemical products 9.5 percent and metals and metal works 7.8 percent of all imports to Latvia in the first month of this year. Year-on-year, mineral product imports rose by 65.6 percent, imports of vehicles by 59.2 percent, imports of rubber items by 26.4 percent, imports of food industry products (including drinks and tobacco) by 15.9 percent and imports of metals and metal works by 13.2 percent. Meanwhile imports of machinery, mechanical and electrical equipment fell 4.7 percent this January from January 2002. Privately owned Baltic News Service (BNS) is the only information agency operating in all the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. For news, market data and more on the Baltics se