News | Wednesday, 10 June 2009

Trade Gap widens

Local economy affected by a decrease in imports and exports

Franica Pulis

Imports in April 2009 decreased when compared with April of last year, registering a drop of €97.5 million, NSO statistics show. Miscellaneous manufactured articles and mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials sustained the worst blow. The articles suffered a €6.2 million loss whilst fuels and lubricants went down from €71.3 million to €12.5 million. Imported items from Italy suffered the greatest loss going down from €89.5 million to €54.3 million followed by the United Kingdom with a drop of €18.5 million from €39.7 million and France with a €10.5 million decrease.
Main exports also suffered a decrease of €42.2 million. This was mainly felt in machinery and transport equipment which went down from €95.5 million to €65 million followed by miscellaneous manufactured articles which dropped down by €13 million.
Only exports of food, beverages and tobacco and chemicals have increased with the largest amount being of chemicals which went up from €11 million to €14.5 million.
Both imports and exports decreased. However, the gap between exports and imports increased by €55.4 million, to the detriment of the Maltese economy.
Importation from Canada registered a surprise increase by more than €37.8 million with exportation to it decreasing by €1.1 million. China also saw a rise in imports going up by €1.5 million from €8.6 million, India increased by €0.3 million and Taiwan kept the same figures.
Exports to Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland increased by less than €0.1 million per country. Exports to Egypt fared slightly better, with an increase of €0.8 million. Belgium and Australia kept the same figures.

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