RIYADH: The volume of non-oil trade between the GCC and the United States in the first nine months of 2015, amounted to $41.7 billion, a rise of 2.8 per cent compared to the same period in 2014, which stood at $40.6 billion. The Omani News Agency, quoting the GCC Statistical Centre in its annual report, revealed that the total value of non-oil merchandise exports of GCC countries to the US in the first nine months of 2015 amounted to $4.8 billion compared to $4 billion during the same period of 2014, an increase of 18.7 per cent.
The report showed that total merchandise imports of GCC countries from the US amounted to $36.9 billion, an increase of one percent compared to the same period in 2014, which amounted to $36.5 billion. These merchandise imports accounted for 11.9 per cent of total imports of the GCC during the same period in 2015.
The report noted that Saudi Arabia was ranked as the most important trading partner of GCC countries for the volume of non-oil trade with the US, with $17.4 billion, which is 41.8 per cent of the total volume of non-oil trade of GCC countries with the US over that period. The UAE was the largest GCC exporting market to the US in the first nine months of 2015, as its exports reached $1.9 billion, or 40 per cent of the total GCC non-oil merchandise exports with the US.
The report indicated that the aluminium group and its products ranked first among non-oil merchandise exports of GCC countries to the US in the first nine months of 2015, where its contribution accounted for nearly 20.9 per cent of the total non-oil merchandise of GCC countries during the same period the previous year. The devices group and machine tools ranked first for merchandise imports from the US, amounting to $10.1billion. This merchandise group accounted for 27.4 per cent of the total imports of GCC commodities from the US in the same period in 2015.
