BEIJING, Feb. 23 -- China's home appliance industry saw export value fall 13.27% year on year to US$31.32 billion in 2009, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Saturday.

The decline was 7.55 percentages points smaller than in the first half of last year.

In 2009, the country imported US$2.80 billon worth of home appliances, 12.08% less than in the previous year.

The export volume of household refrigerators fell 4.86% year on year, while that of washing machines dropped 6.12% from a year earlier.

There was a 29.38% plunge in export volume of electric water heaters and a 25.61% decrease in export volume of air-conditioners.