U.S.-Egypt trade exchange falls 21.6% in H1

Trade exchange between Egypt and the United States fell 21.6 percent year-on-year to around 18 billion Egyptian pounds ($2 billion) throughout the first half of the year.

In the first half of 2015, trade exchange stood at 23 billion pounds.

During June this year, trade between Egypt and the U.S. dropped 12.7 percent to record around 3.1 billion pounds, compared to 3.6 billion pounds in the same period in 2015, according to the state statistics agency CAPMAS latest report.

Egypt’s exports to the U.S. markets registered a 9.3 percent decline to 4.3 billion pounds during the first half of 2016, versus 4.7 billion pounds in the same period last year, the report added.

In June, exports tumbled to 730.2 million pounds, from 772.8 million pounds last year.

Imports from the U.S. also shrank 24.8 percent to 13.7 billion pounds in the first half of 2016, compared to 18.3 billion pounds in 2015.  June imports reached 2.4 billion pounds, down from 2.8 billion pounds last year.

Imports from the U.S. were mainly in iron and steel, worth 1.7 billion pounds, machinery of 2 billion pounds, food waste and animal feed of 1.15 billion pounds, meat and edible meat offal worth 820 million pounds, and home appliances amounting to 890.1 million pounds.