Stronger growth of exports compared to imports continues in first four months of 2019 in Moldova

Chisinau, 15 June /MOLDPRES/ – The exports of goods increased by 8.1 per cent in the first four months of 2019 compared to similar period of 2018, while imports grew by 6.2 per cent. Moldova delivered foreign goods in January – April worth $948.7 million and imported goods in the amount of $1,880.6 million, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (BNS).

It is a reverse trend to the one recorded in 2018, while exports went up by 11.6 per cent during 2019 and imports increased by 19.3 per cent. But the statisticians note that in April the growth rate of imports, 15.9 per cent, compared to April 2018, was almost double compared with advance of exports by 08 per cent, after the exports advanced in the previous month imports of about 3.5 times, and have maintained the trend recorded in the first two months of 2019.

The considerable gap in evolution of exports and imports of Moldova led to accumulation in January – April 2019 of a trade balance deficit of $931.9 million, with $39.0 million more than in the same period of 2018.

The BNS's data shows an impressive rise in Moldovan exports to markets in other countries of the world than EU and CIS, which accounted for 21.87 per cent compared with 15.98 per cent in January – April 2018. This impressive evolution was driven by a fold increase of 2.5 times in deliveries to Turkey.

The exports to EU grew by 1.2 per cent in the first four months of 2019, and to the states of CIS dicreased by 2.5 per cent, as the share of eastern markets went down below 15 per cent of total exports.

The Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure (MEI) has anticipated an increase in exports in 2019 by 13.1 per cent over last year, up to $3.45 billion and an increase in imports by 9.4 per cent to MDL 6.5 billion.