Analysis

Georgia’s exports jump 11.1 per cent

freight, ship, trade

Georgia’s exports totalled 2.72 billion US dollars during the first nine months of 2019, 11.1 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of 2018, while the country’s imports decreased by 3.3 per cent to 6.47 billion US dollars in the same period, the Georgian press has reported citing a report from Geostat, the country’s national statistics office.

The countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) continued to attract the highest share of Georgian exports (52.6 per cent) while the share of exports to the European Union stood at 22.8 per cent between January and September.

The majority of imports arrived from CIS countries (26.3 per cent) and the European bloc (25.8 per cent).

Exports from Georgia to the EU grew by 16.3 per cent over the past nine months to 6.2 billion US dollars. Imports during the same period dropped by 10.6 per cent to 1.7 billion US dollars.

Georgia’s top trading partners were Russia (371.1 million US dollars), Azerbaijan (355.1 million US dollars) and Armenia (261.3 million US dollars).

Turkey (1.14 billion US dollars), Russia (661.4 million US dollars) and China (647.2 million US dollars) remain the leading sources of Georgian imports.

The country’s top export products included copper ores and concentrates (17.5 per cent of total exports, worth 476.4 million US dollars), motor cars (16.7 per cent; 454.3 million US dollars) and ferro-alloys (8.8 per cent; 240 million US dollars). At the same time, petroleum, petroleum oils, motor cars, as well as copper ores and concentrates were the top import products (accounting for 22.3 per cent of the total).

Georgia’s trade deficit stood at 3.76 billion US dollars between January and September.