The foreign trade volume in goods and services in Belarus amounted to $40.2 billion over the eight months period of 2010, including export — $18.3 billion, import — $21.9 billion. In this case, the trade deficit reached $3.6 billion, the National Statistics Committee reported.
As it became known to Telegraf, the foreign trade in goods and services increased by 17.7%, export — by 19.3%, import — by 16.3% considering the current prices rate, compared with January-August 2009.
The volume of external merchandise trade amounted to $35.8 billion, including export — $15.4 billion (by 17.6% more than in 2009), import — $20.4 billion (by 15% more).
An increase of foreign trade operations was observed in January-August 2010. As reported by the National Statistics Committee, this happened due mainly to average prices rising for exported and imported goods. Average export prices went up by 19%, import — by 12.6%, compared with 2009. Due to this, there was an increase of the imports value and the entire increase in exports by 85.8%. The physical volume of exports decreased by 1.2%, while imports volume rose by 2.1%.
As a result, a negative balance of foreign trade exceeded $ 5 billion. Over January-August 2009 the deficit amounted to $4.6 billion.
Deficit Sources are Energy and Raw Materials, Belstat
The main source of foreign trade deficit in goods are export-import operations with intermediate goods (energy, raw materials and components), the National Statistics Committee reported.
Over the eight months period of 2010, Belarus imported intermediate goods of $ 15 billion value, or by 16.5% more than in the corresponding period last year. Exports amounted to $9.7 billion, which is 5.7% higher than in 2009.
Negative balance of foreign trade in intermediate goods increased from $3.7 billion in January-August 2009 to $5.4 billion in 2010.
Energy Exports Decreased by 22%, Belstat
In this case, energy accounts for 38.7% of the exports value and 45.3% of intermediate goods imports.
In 2010, intermediate goods have been put on the external market in the amount of $3.7 billion, up 22% less than in January-August 2009. Imports of energy products amounted to $6.8 billion, which is 2.4% less than in 2009.
Energy deficit has reached $3 billion, while in January-August 2009, the value of the deficit amounted to $2.1 billion.
Surplus Food Trade has Reached Nearly $1 Billion, Belstat
Foreign trade surplus in consumer goods amounted to $184.1 million. It was negative in January-August 2009 and amounted to $229.7 million.
The National Statistics Committee says that such a result has been obtained at the expense of food products group. The surplus in this group amounted to $997 million and increased in 2.6 times compared with the corresponding period of 2009.
The food exports increase was due to the cost rising of the supplies of condensed and dry milk and cream (by $177.7 million), cheese and cottage cheese (by $119.8 million), white sugar (by $117.4 million), beef (by $61 million) and butter (by $56 million), milk and cream, non-concentrated (by $36.6 million).
