BAKU: Top 3 of Azerbaijan’s key trading partners has undergone drastic internal changes in August 2016. For the first time in 21st century Turkey became the key trading partner of Azerbaijan, displaced Italy (long-term leader) from this position.
The State Customs Committee (SCC) informs that for Jan-Aug the ‘non-aligned’ countries (states out of EU and CIS) managed to keep their status of key trade partners of Azerbaijan for the sixth month running. Those countries formed Azerbaijan’s foreign trade turnover ($11.330 bn) by 48.2% or $5.462 bn, while the EU countries formed it by 36.94% ($4.186 bn). 14.86% or $1.683 bn accounted for CIS member states.
Over Jan-Aug 2016 Azerbaijan’s export to the EU countries reached $2.635 bn or 45.5% of total export ($5.79million) with a decline of 46.29%, while import from the EU states ($1.551 bn) fell by 11.43% to 28% of total import ($5.54 bn). As a result, Azerbaijan had positive balance with the EU member countries at the level of $1.084 bn versus the total deficit of the country’s foreign trade ($250 million).
For Jan-Aug 2016 export to the non-aligned countries declined by 30.39% to $2.768 bn (47.8% of total export) and import by 5.04% to $2.694 bn (48.63% of total import). As a result, Azerbaijan received $74 million of deficit with those countries.
Azerbaijan’s export to the CIS countries totaled only $388 million (6.7% of entire export) with a rise of 1.26-fold and import made up $1.295 bn (23.37%) with a fall of 1.87%. As a result, the country had negative balance of $907 million.
As of 1 September 2016, Top 5 of key trade partners of Azerbaijan was as follows: Turkey with total turnover of $1.459 bn (import from Azerbaijan for $727 million and export for $723 million) held the first place. It was followed by Italy with $1.278 bn ($1.043 bn and $235 million respectively), Russia with $1.197 bn ($229 million and $968 million), Germany with $671 million ($421 million and $2150 million), and China with $540 million ($116 million and $424 million).
Taiwan became the sixth trade partner of Azerbaijan with mutual trade turnover of $477 million (import from Azerbaijan for $467million and export for $10 million). It is followed by the France ($439 million, $345 million, $94 million respectively), UK ($418 million, $55 million, $363 million), US ($392 million, $78 million, $314 million) and Israel ($355 million, $346 million and $9 million).
