Trade Deficit Widens to USD 4.5 bln in 2008
Georgia’s negative trade balance widened to USD 4.56 billion, against USD 3.98 billion in 2007, according to the Statistics Department.
It said that Georgia’s total foreign trade turnover rose 17.2% amounting to USD 7.55 billion in 2008, with export reaching USD 1.49 billion – 21.5% more than in 2007 and import – USD 6.05 billion, a 16.2% increase over 2007.
Turkey is the Georgia’s major trading partner with the trading volume amounting to USD 1.2 billion, up by 33.7% over 2007. Trading volume with Turkey accounted for 15.9% (rose by 1.9%) of the total foreign trade turnover.
Azerbaijan comes second with USD 813,2 million – up by 56.4% over 2007 and now accounts 10.8% of the total foreign trade turnover.
Ukraine comes third with USD 791,8 million (rose 18.3%); followed by Germany – USD 467 million; Russia – USD 454 million (Russia was Georgia’s third largest trading partner in 2007 and second in 2006); the United States – USD 343.5 million; China – USD 307 million; United Arab Emirates – USD 283.8 million; Bulgaria – USD 231 million and Italy – USD 198.7 million.
Ferro-alloys remained the number one Georgian export in 2008, amounting over USD 267 million and accounting 17.8% of total exports; followed by ferrous metal scrap – USD 128.5 million (8.6%) and copper – USD 118 million (7.9%). Oil products and hydrocarbons top the list of imports totaling USD 967 million – up to 16% of entire imports.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
