The value of Arab merchandise exports reached roughly $1.225 trillion in 2014, accounting for 6.5% of the world’s merchandise export value, recent figures show, AMEinfo reported. In its fourth issue of the “Statistics on Competitiveness of Intra-Arab Trade” bulletin, the Arab Monetary Fund reveals that the value of Saudi imports of goods amounted to approximately $889.6 billion in the same year, which represented 4.7% of global merchandise imports. In spite of the significant growth in inter-Arab trade volume during the past few years, the proportion is still low. The most important mutual commodities among the Arab countries are mineral fuels, which includes crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas, accounting for nearly 27.7% of the average inter-Arab trade in 2014. The group of livestock, vegetables and food and beverage follows with 20.3%, iron steel and other basic metals and related products with 19.3%, and chemical industry products with 12.9%, while the proportion of machinery and transport equipment amounted to 6.5%.
