Brussels, 26/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - EU countries are still the main trading partners of Algeria, according to the country's Customs Statistics Office, in a document taking stock of the trade flows in the first quarter of this year. At this date, the EU accounted for 51.6% of Algerian imports and 66.55% of exports from the country. These percentages are comparable with those from the first quarter of 2013.
Overall, exports from Algeria ($16.43 billion in total volume) fell by 6.02% compared to the first quarter of 2013. Exports remain dominated by sales in hydrocarbons (95.59% of total). These declined by 6.8% compared to the previous year.
Exports excluding hydrocarbons are “marginal” and account for only 4.41% of the global volume of exports, and are worth $725 million. Nonetheless, they did rise by 15.26% compared to the first quarter of 2013.
According to these data, imports from the EU fell by 7.84%, from $7.74 billion in the first quarter of 2013 to $7.13 billion for the same period in 2014. Algerian exports to these countries declined by $583 million (more than 5%). In the EU, Spain is Algeria's main customer, according to the statistics, accounting for almost 13.68% of Algerian sales, followed by Italy (13.31%) and France (11.97%). France is, however, the country's main supplier (12.11%), followed by Italy (9.15%) and Spain (8.78%).
The statistics confirm the weakness of “horizontal” flows with the countries of Maghreb region. Compared to the first quarter of 2013, there was a fall of 9.96% (from $1.24 million to $1.12 million). (FB)