Egypt’s trade deficit records $2.7 billion in September, decrease 32.4 %

Egypt’s trade deficit dipped 32.4 percent during September 2020, recording $2.7 billion, compared to $4 billion in the same month of 2019, according to the state’s statistics agency CAPMAS.

In its monthly bulletin on foreign trade data, CAPMAS said exports declined 2.8 percent to reach $2.3 billion in September 2020, compared to $2.4 billion during the same month of 2019.

The bulletin attributed the decrease of exports to the fall in the exports of various commodities, such as: ready-made clothes by 5.1 percent, petroleum products by 36.5 percent, crude oil by 38.4 percent, fertilizers by 33.4 percent.

Meanwhile, exports of some other commodities witnessed an increase in September such as: plastics by 15.2 percent, pasta and various food preparations by 17.8 percent, carpets and kilims by 23.6 percent, medicine and pharmaceutical products by 4.9 percent.

On the other side, the bulletin showed a decline of 21.3 percent in the imports to hit $5 billion in September of the current year, compared to $6.4 billion in September 2019.

CAPMAS ascribed this decrease to the drop-in imports of wheat by 16.3 percent, crude oil by 0.3 percent, petroleum products by 51.2 percent, iron or steel raw materials by 39.6 percent.

On the other hand, imports of other commodities showed a rise such as passenger cars by 19.9 percent, phones for individuals by 5.4 percent, soybeans by 1.9 percent, automatic information-processing devices by 166.1 percent.