“Over the first seven months of 2016, Algeria’s trade deficit reached $11.93 billion against $9.43 billion in 2015 during the same period. This deficit thus rose by 26.5%.” This is what reveals data released by Algeria’s National Centre for IT and Customs Statistics (CNIS in French).

At the root of the surge in deficit is the drop in exports which plunged from $22.1bn over the first seven months of 2015 to $15.14bn over the same period in 2016, thus representing a 31.48% decrease or $7 billion, the CNIS indicates. Imports in the country have also slumped by 14.14% from 2015 to 2016 (same period), from $27.07bn to $31.53 billion. Coverage rate of imports by exports thus stands at 56% for the first seven months of 2016, against 70% for the same period the year before.

The fall in Algerian exports is mainly due to the drop in oil exports that represent 93.73% of global exports volume and generate more than 93% of the country’s global revenues.

Over the first seven months of 2016, oil exports decreased to $14.19 billion from $20.9 billion over the same period in 2015, thus 32.09% less or $6.71 billion. For global exports - oil’s which represent 6.27% of total exports excluded - they fell by 20.72% compared to 2015’s first seven months.

However, regarding imports, they fell to $4.69bn (from $5.75bn), to $8.83bn (from $10.45bn) for industrial equipments, to $278 mln (from $416 mln) for agricultural equipments, to $6.82bn (from $7.15bn) for semi-products, to $929mln (from $970mln) for raw products and to $4.71bn (from $5.29bn) for non-food consumption goods, between the two considered periods.

It should however be noted that Algeria’s trade deficit has increased by $1.1bn in one month as it was estimated to $10.83bn in the first half of 2016.

Alain Okpeitcha