China continues to be Namibia’s largest export market – Trade statistics
China emerged as Namibia’s largest export market while South Africa maintained its position as the number one source of imports for Namibia during September 2020, Statistician General at the Namibia Statistics Agency, Alex Shimuafeni said.
Shimuafeni said the composition of goods exported remained the same mainly comprising of minerals such as non-ferrous metals, metalliferous ores and metal scrap, non-metallic mineral manufactures, as well as non-monetary gold.
“Fish remained the only non-mineral products among the top five list of exports. On the other hand, the import basket comprised mainly of non-ferrous metals, petroleum and petroleum products; metalliferous ores and metal scrap, vehicles and inorganic chemicals,” he added.
The September 2020 trade figures indicates that total re-exports decreased by 7.7% month-on-month and increased by 61.8% year-on-year to register N$4 billion from N$4.4 billion recorded in August 2020 and N$2.5 billion in September 2019.
The non-ferrous metals took the largest share of re-exports, constituting a share of 61.1% of total re-exports mainly to China and Hong Kong. The non-ferrous metals which were re-exported were mostly sourced from Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo.
The month of September 2020 saw Namibia’s total merchandise trade reaching to the level of N$18.1 billion, which is 10.8% and 14.5% higher than N$16.4 billion recorded in August 2020 and N$15.8 billion recorded in September 2019.
However, the country’s trade balance remained at a deficit of N$1.4 billion as in August 2020, but improved from a deficit of N$1.9 billion recorded in September 2019.
