Trade balance: Exports increase by 19% in the first two months of 2018

Albanian exports grew by nearly 19% in February, slightly improving the country’s trade balance compared with the previous year.

According to the Institute of Statistics, trade deficit narrowed by 8% compared to February 2017.

However, the good performance of exports has only narrowed some of the January figures and for the first two months of the year the economy accumulated about ALL 43 billion in trade deficit, about 7% more compared to the same period last year.

For the first two months of the year, exports reached ALL 47.4 billion, 21% more than the same period a year earlier.

Even for 2018, exports seems to be driven by the forward processing sector.

According to Instat, the exports of the “textile and footwear” group for the first two months of the year continued to dominate the export structure by about 43% of the total, a weight similar to 2017.

The Group of “Construction Materials and Metals” reported a growth of ALL 8.7 billion, 58% more compared to the first two months of 2017.

The positive growth, at present, is also noted in the export of minerals and food products.

Import of goods continued to increase in February, but at slower pace.

For the first two months of the year, imports expanded 14% on an annual basis.

Most of the groups result in growth, while the main group in terms of value is “Construction Materials and Metals”.

The dominance of capital goods in the structure of imports shows that the performance of investments in the economy seems to be satisfactory in the first months of this year.

SCAN

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