Algeria’s trade deficit dropped to $11.19 billion last year, down by 34% from $17.06 billion in 2016, as exports rose significantly to $34.76 billion in 2017, from $30.02 billion in 2016, almost entirely due to higher earnings from exports of hydrocarbons.
The Algerian Customs’ National Center of Data Processing and Statistics reported in Algiers, Sunday, that in addition to higher exports, total imports fell to $45.95 billion from $47.09 billion in 2016, a drop of 2.4%, Bernama reported.
According to the CNIS, hydrocarbons accounted for 94.54% of total exports in 2017 at $32.86 billion, up 16.45% from the $28.22 billion recorded in 2016, while non-hydrocarbon exports were still marginal $1.89 billion, up by 5.21% compared with 2016.
Non-hydrocarbon exports were mainly semi-processed products, food products, industrial capital goods, raw products and non-food consumer goods.
Among imports, lubricants accounted for nearly $2 billion in 2017, agricultural capital goods $611 million, food products $8.43 billion and non-food consumer goods $8.45 billion.
However, imports of industrial capital goods fell to $13.96 billion last year from $15.41 billion in 2016 while imports of semi-processed products fell to $10.98 billion from $11.43 billion previously and imports of raw products eased to $1.52 billion from $1.56 billion.
The main destinations for Algerian exports in 2017 were Italy ($5.55 billion), France ($4.5 billion), Spain, the United States and Brazil, while the main sources of imports were China ($8.31 billion), France ($4.3 billion), Italy, Germany and Spain.
