Neighbour’s SA emerge as the country’s largest export and import destination in July
The trade composition by partner illustrated that South Africa emerged as Namibia’s largest market for both exports and imports in July 2021, according to trade statistics released this week by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA).
South Africa emerged as the country’s largest export destination, with a share of 20.1% of all goods exported followed by Spain with a share of 15.1%, NSA statistician general Alex Shimuafeni said, adding that China, Zambia, and the Netherlands formed part of Namibia’s top five export markets.
Shimuafeni said the composition of the export basket mainly comprised minerals such as copper, precious stones (diamonds), non-monetary gold as well as ores and concentrates of base metals.
“As usual, fish remained the only non-mineral product among the top five exports. On the other hand, the import basket consisted mainly of copper, petroleum oils, ores of precious metals, precious stones (diamonds), and medicament’s,” he added.
Meanwhile, the demand side saw South Africa maintaining its first position as the country’s largest source of imports, accounting for 44.4% of total imports into Namibia followed by Zambia in the second position with 8.6% of the market share. D.R.C, Bulgaria, and China also formed part of Namibia’s top five sources of imports.
The July 2021 exports decreased by 28% y/y and 49% m/m in July, whereas imports decreased by 23% y/y and 21% m/m, while the trade deficit widened from N$902 million to N$3.2 billion.
