New Economic Stats Released for QIV 2019
The external trade return with European Union (EU) countries decreased by 3.8% year-on-year (y/y) and amounted to $2.57 billion. On the other hand, trade increased by 0.6% with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries and reached $3.54 billion in January-October 2019, shows the preliminary data from the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat).
Georgia's top trading partners include Turkey ($1.47 billion), Russia ($1.18 billion) and China ($871.8 million) from January to October 2019.
In January-October 2019 Georgia’s total external trade turnover amounted to 66.6%.
In January-October 2019 the top export partners were Russia ($409.8 million), Azerbaijan ($400.4 million) and Armenia ($310.4 million).
While the top import partners included Turkey ($1.3 billion), Russia ($774.2 million) and China ($721.2 million). Consecutively, in January-October 2019 the share of the top ten trading partners by imports in total imports of Georgia amounted to 65.6%.
Exports totaled $685.2 million (14.2% higher), while imports reached $1.89 billion (9% lower).
Regarding trade with EU countries, the share of exports to EU countries represented 22.6% of total exports, while the share of imports constituted 25.8% of total imports.
Georgia’s trade with Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) also increased with exports coming to around $1.61 billion (22.5% higher than the previous year) while imports sank to $1.93 billion (12.5% lower).
The share of exports to CIS countries constituted 53.1% of total exports, while the share of imports equaled to 26.3% of total imports.
Georgia’s main exports in 2019 include:
- Copper ores and concentrates - $528.5 million (17.4% of total exports)
- Motor cars - $522.5 million (17.2% of total exports)
- Ferro-alloys - $251.7 million (8.3% of total exports)
Georgia’s main imports in 2019 include:
- Petroleum and petroleum oils - $616.2 million (8.4% of total imports)
- Motor cars - $529.5 million (7.2% of total imports)
- Copper ores and concentrates - $497.5 million (6.8% of total imports)
Generally, Georgia’s external trade turnover enlarged to $10.37 billion (0.5% higher than the previous year).
The value of exports increased by 10.4% and reached $3.04 billion, while imports decreased by 3.1% and amounted to $7.33 billion.
The trade deficit of Georgia in January-October 2019 amounted to $4.3 billion which is 41.4% of trade turnover.
According to the same info released by Geostat, In the third quarter of 2019, the unemployment rate in Georgia decreased by 1.1% compared to the same period of last year and amounted to 11.1%.
In Q3 of 2019, the economically active population was made up of 62.5% of the working-age population (population aged 15 and older). In comparison to the same period of 2018, the economic activity rate decreased by 1.8%, while the employment rate decreased by 0.9%.
By Beka Alexishvili