The Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry, Nevin Jameh, revealed that the Egyptian trade balance deficit with the countries of the world decreased by 17 percent during the year 2020, as the value of the deficit reached 38.29 million dollars compared to 46.22 million dollars in 2019, despite the repercussions of the new Coronavirus crisis.

Jameh attributed this decline to the positive rates achieved in the foreign trade performance indicators during the past year, which totaled about $90 million. Pointing out that Egyptian exports witnessed a slight decline by 1 percent during 2020, reaching a value of $25.29 million compared to $25.63 million in 2019. While imports witnessed a significant decline by 12 percent, reaching a value of $63.58 million against $71.86 million in 2019.

Jameh considered that these positive indicators that were achieved during the past year confirm the success of the Egyptian government's efforts to deal with the repercussions of the spread of the Coronavirus, which cast a shadow over the global trade movement. Considering that although the wheel of production has stopped in many countries of the world, the Egyptian industry was able to face this crisis, thanks to the urgent measures taken by the government since the beginning of the crisis, especially with regard to reducing gas and electricity prices for the productive sectors, as well as putting forward many initiatives to pay the back arrears to exporters, which contributed to preserving the export markets and employment as well.”

She also indicated that the significant decline in imports came as a result of the trend towards starting to manufacture a number of production inputs and requirements locally instead of importing them, which would achieve the goals of the national program launched by the ministry to deepen local manufacturing.

Source (London-based Arab Newspaper, Edited)