Egypt’s trade deficit shrank 41.3% year-on-year to $2.44 billion in September, according to data released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) on Sunday, backed by higher exports and lower imports.
Exports rose 11.6% year-on-year to $4.11 billion in September, mainly driven by a 671.7% surge in exports of liquified natural gas (LNG).
Imports fell 16.4% to $6.55 billion despite a 69% rise in imports of petroleum products.
Wheat imports went down 2.6% year-on-year, the data showed.
In August, Egypt’s trade deficit increased by 0.6% year-on-year to $4.18 billion.
Imports have been suffering from a shortfall in foreign currency since the Ukraine crisis in February, partly due to the outflow of dollars from the North African country's treasury markets, Reuters reported in November. Egypt recorded $8 billion in revenues from natural gas and LNG exports in its 2021/2022 fiscal year (FY).
The country earns about $500 million monthly from natural gas exports and aims to raise that figure to $1 billion "in the coming period," Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said in mid-September.
In 2022, Egypt will boost its LNG exports by 14% to 8 million metric ton per year, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Tarek El-Molla said in November. This comes as the North African producer aims to plug a hole left by lower Russian imports into the European Union.
About 90% of this year's LNG exports are going towards European Union countries, compared with 80% in 2021, El-Molla noted.
In other exports, the North African nation aims to increase its exports of digitally-delivered services by 13% year-on-year to over $5.5 billion in FY 2022/2023. The digital services exports hit $4.9 billion in FY 2021/2022 and $4.5 billion the year earlier.
