Drop in trade surplus in 9 first months of 2014 in Algeria

Algeria recorded a trade surplus of USD 5.39 billion during the nine first months of 2014 against USD 6.6 billion during the same period of the previous year, 18% down, Algerian Customs told APS Monday.
From January to September 2014, Algeria’s exports reached USD 49.23 billion (against USD 48.53 billion in the same period in 2013), recording a 1.44% rise, added the National Centre for Data Processing and Statistics of the Algerian Customs (CNIS).
As for imports, they totalled USD 43.83 billion against USD 41.93 billion, a 4.55% rise during the same period last year, reports the Centre’s temporary figures.
These figures show exports’ covering imports by 112% (against 116% during first 9 months of 2013).
Hydrocarbons continued to represent the biggest part of exports with 95.83%  of the global volume  of Algerian international shipments, i.e. USD 47.18 billion during the nine months of 2014 (against USD 46.97 billion in the same period of 2013), recording a slight improvement of 0.44% despite the fall in oil prices these past months.
As for non-hydrocarbon exports, they reached USD2.05 billion during the nine first months of 2014, a 31.8% rise, but representing only 4.17% of the total amount of the Algerian exports.
As for products that recorded a rise in imports, essentially foodstuffs with a total of USD 8.63 billion (+17.6%), agricultural equipments with USD 478 million (+31.7%) and industrial equipments with USD 13.92 billion (+13.71%).
The countries of the European Union (EU) remain Algeria’s main partners with respective proportions of 51.35% of the Algerian imports (USD 22.51 bn) and more than 64% of the Algerian exports (USD 31.54 bn).