Egypt’s trade deficit dropped 14% in the last month of 2020, recording $3.28 billion, compared to $3.8 billion in December 2019, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

In its “Foreign Trade Data” bulletin, the agency stated that the value of exports went down by 0.1%, recording at $2.76 billion in December 2020, compared to $2.77 billion in December 2019.

They note that this was due to a decrease in value of some commodities. These included petroleum products which declined by 38.3%, crude oil by 0.7%, various pasta and food preparations by 3.3%, and ceramic tiles and sanitary ware by 12.5%.

On the import side, CAPMAS showed a decline of 8.1 percent in the imports to hit $6.04 billion in December of 2020, compared to $6.58 billion in the same month of 2019.

The agency attributed the decline to the drop-in imports of iron and steel, which fell by 19%, passenger cars by 16.8%, chemicals by 18.5%, and mobile phones by 38.2%.

Import did increase for some commodities in December 2020 vs 2019, including crude oil by 3.6%, petroleum products increased by 10.2%, wheat by 16.5%, and medicines and pharmaceuticals by 13.7%.