Egypt's Trade Deficit Takes a Dive in May 2024: What’s Behind It?

Guess what? Egypt’s trade deficit took a nosedive of 10.3% in May 2024, and we've got the lowdown from our buddies at CAPMAS. This cool change is all thanks to more stuff being shipped out and less coming in.

The Numbers that Matter

Exports: Egypt sold $3.81 billion worth of goods in May 2024, which is 0.4% more than the year before.
Imports: They brought in $7.38 billion worth of stuff, which is 5.1% less than the previous year.
Trade Deficit: In May, Egypt was in the red by $3.57 billion.

So, what’s the deal with this drop in the trade deficit? It's because they've been exporting more fruits, clothes that are already put together, food prep stuff, and carpets.

Things Egypt's Doing Right

Fresh Fruits: Fruit exports shot up by a whopping 17.4%. Check it out here.
Ready-Made Clothes: They sold 5.5% more clothes that didn't need assembling. More info.
Doughs and Food Prep: Exports of these yummy goods went up by 32.2%. Tasty stats here.
Carpets and Kilims: Saw a 1.3% bump in sales. Details here.

But wait, there's a flip side! Some things Egypt usually sells a lot of didn't do so hot:

Crude Petroleum: Sales dropped by 4.3%. Energy info here.
Petroleum Products: Went down by 17.4%. Read more.
Fertilizers: Dip by 5.2%. Fertilizer facts here.
Plastics in Primary Forms: Fell by 10.5%. Plastic details.

Stuff Egypt's Buying Less Of

They're also buying less stuff, which is a big help in reducing that trade gap:

Raw Materials of Iron or Steel: Down by a tiny 0.3%. Steel stats here.
Plastics in Primary Forms: A smaller decrease of 2.9%. Plastic insights here.
Medicines and Pharmaceutical Preparations: Fell a whopping 24.7%. Health stuff here.
Organic and Inorganic Chemicals: Decreased by 23.3%. Chemical data here.

The decrease in buying medicines and chemicals really helped shrink that trade deficit.

But What About the Current Account?

While trade is looking up, Egypt's current account deficit didn't get the memo. It actually got bigger, hitting $17.1 billion in the first nine months of the fiscal year 2023-2024. That's because oil exports didn't drop as much as oil imports. Central bank info here.