Trade deficit $78.95 million for July

By Adel Fruean 23 September 2020, 1:00PM

Samoa's trade deficit stood at $78.95 million in July 2020, with imports of $92.5 million exceeding exports worth $13.5 million.

The figure was revealed by the Samoa Bureau of Statistics this week. According to a report by the Bureau, the total value of merchandise exports increased by 45.5 per cent to $11.5 million.

The increase in exports was driven by the increase of ‘Food and Live Animal’ up by $3.2 million with ‘Fish, crustaceans and molluscs’ exports up by $2.7 million.

The report says the Oceania region had the largest share of total merchandise exports value with 78.0 per cent, increasing 43.0 per cent of up to $2.7 million from the previous month. With American Samoa leading the export market in July 2020, accounting for 45.0 per cent of total merchandise exports value.

However, the total value of merchandise imports increased by 16.5 per cent to $68.9 million.

Mainly responsible for the current increase in July were higher values of ‘Food and Live Animal’ up by $3.6 million, ‘Mineral fuels, Lubricants & related materials were up by $6.7 million.

The ‘Food and Live Animal’ imports had the largest increase of up to $3.6 million reflecting a large increase in imports of ‘Meat and edible meat offal’ commodities up by $2.3 million.

The Oceania region had the largest share of total merchandise imports valued at 58.7 per cent up by $5.3 million with New Zealand the main driver of the current increase up by $2.3 million stemming from the importation of significant volumes of meat and edible meat offal products during the month.

The Asia region also increased up by $1.7 million with the total merchandise import share of 31.6 per cent.

New Zealand was the leading source market for imports in July 2020, accounting for 30.9 per cent of the total merchandise import value.

Imports from Singapore, Australia, America, China, and Indonesia recorded relatively large increases in values in July 2020.

By Adel Fruean 23 September 2020, 1:00PM
Samoa Observer

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