Uzbekistan’s international trade in January-July 2023 topped $34.97 billion, recording an increase of $6.6 billion, or 23.3%, compared to the same period last year. This follows from the report of the Statistics Agency under the President.
Exports
Exports grew by 31% to $14.95 billion, imports to $20.02 billion (+18.1%). The trade deficit surpassed -5.07 billion dollars, which is less than last year's figure ($5.54 billion). The gap was narrowed only thanks to a sharp increase in gold exports.
In particular, in seven months Uzbekistan sold gold worth of $5.64 billion, which is 2.1 times more than in January-July 2022 ($2.97 billion) and more than in the whole of 2022 ($4.11 billion). Gold accounts for 37.7% of the country's total exports. In July alone, $1.26 billion worth of gold was sold (although foreign exchange reserves declined), while there were no sales in June.
The share of manufactured goods in exports fell from 23.6% to 16.3% amid a decline in supplies from $2.7 billion to $2.4 billion.
Exports except for gold grew by only 10.4% to $9.3 billion.
Sales of vegetables and fruits increased to $688.4 million (+26.1%), cereals - $281.3 million (+70%), oil and oil products - $142.7 million (+73.1%), details and car accessories - $203.7 million (+32.4%), office machinery and equipment for automatic data processing - $20.3 million (19.6 times), telecommunication equipment, sound recording - $65.8 million ( 3.9 times).
While, supplies of textile products fell by 3.9% to $1.86 billion, gas to $341.9 million (-35%), electricity to $47.2 million (-22.4%), fertilizers - up to 154.3 million dollars (-44.1%), non-ferrous metals - up to 809.6 million dollars (-13.4%).
The volume of tourism exports amounted to 1.24 billion dollars (42.1% in the volume of services). For comparison, this figure for January-July last year was $732.5 million, and for this period in 2021 - $175.9 million. That is, in two years, tourism revenues increased 7 times.
Imports
As for imports, food supplies remain at a high level: grains and products from them - $669.6 million (+16.1%), sugar, sugar and honey products - $326.1 million (+13.3% ), coffee, tea, cocoa, spices — $198.5 million (+26.5%), vegetable oils and fats — $197.2 million (+89%), vegetables and fruits — $195.4 million (+ 18%), meat and meat products - $171.1 million (+8.1%), dairy products and eggs - $121.8 million (+39.7%).
Imports of oil and oil products also increased - $1 billion (+59.6%), coal, coke and briquettes - $98 million (+56.6%). Gas deliveries remain at the level of $201 million, in July gas was imported for $1 million, in June - $48.8 million. In March, Uzbekistan imported gas worth $151.2 million.
Imports of cars grew to $832.8 million (+80.7%), spare parts - up to $801.8 (+8.6%), aircraft and other aircraft - $482.1 million (2.2 times).
It is noteworthy that the supply of medical and pharmaceutical products fell to $840.1 million (-7.4%), although there was a steady increase in previous years. This may be due to the introduction of drug labeling.
