On the Results of Foreign Trade in January-August 2011

20 October 2011

From the materials of the press briefing by the MFA Press Secretary Andrei Savinykh held on October 20, 2011

The results of January-August of the current year indicate steady positive trends in foreign trade.

A stable monthly exports increase of goods and services is ensured. If in January we noted that exports substantially lagged behind from imports (37 percentage points), then according to the results of January-August, export growth rate has already outpaced imports by more than 17 percent.

During this period, export of goods has increased by US$10.6 billion, and services – by US$ 540 million.

An important factor is the fact that high export growth rates are due, primarily, to the increase in physical volumes of deliveries of Belarusian products by 33.3 percent with the increase in average export prices by 26.5 percent.

Within the ongoing work on the geographical diversification of exports, shipments to 16 new countries are growing (Bahrain, Barbados, Bolivia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Benin, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mozambique, Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Somalia, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Burkina — Faso, Uruguay).

The geographical diversification of exports is supported by the measures aimed to expand the range of goods supplied to traditional markets.

As a result of these measures and related measures of monetary, budget and fiscal policies in January-August of the current year the negative balance in trade of goods and services decreased by US$ 1.6 billion and amounted to US$ 2 billion compared to the same period of the previous year.