A look at Georgia's Foreign Trade in 2017

According to the preliminary figures released by Geostat on January 22, 2017, saw a 13.8% year-on-year (y/y) increase in Georgia’s foreign trade turnover to $10.7b (USD).  The trade gap stands at $5.25b as Georgian exports jumped 29.1% y/y to $2.72b, with imports also increasing 9.4% y/y to $7.97b. 

Trade with EU-member states increased by 2% y/y to $2.84b, with exports rising 13% y/y to $646.5m, with imports describing by 0.8% y/y to $2.19b. Meanwhile, trade with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) saw a much larger increase (30.2% y/y) standing at $3.54b, with exports growing a whopping 60% y/y to $1.18b, and imports rising by 19.2% y/y to $2.36b. 

Trade with EU countries represented 26.6% (23.7% exports, 27.% imports) of Georgia’s total foreign trade turnover, compared with 29.6% in 2016 (27.1% exports, 30.4% imports). As for the CIS countries, they made up 33.1% of Georgia’s total foreign trade turnover (43.1% exports, 29.6% exports), compared with 28.9% in 2016 (34.9% exports, 27.2% imports). 

However, Turkey remained Georgia’s largest trading partner in 2017, with $1.58b, followed by Russia ($1.18b), China ($939m) and Azerbaijan ($881m). Although it is worth noting that in terms of exports, Russia was Georgia’s biggest trading partner with $394m, with Azerbaijan ($272m), Turkey ($216m) and China ($207m). Meanwhile, Turkey tops the list in terms of imports at $1.37b, followed by Russia ($788m), China ($732m) and Azerbaijan ($609m).  

Topping the list of exports in 2017 are copper ores and concentrates ($419m), followed by ferroalloys, ($306m); re-export of motorcars ($234m); and wine ($170m). Oil and oil products retained their seats at the top of the list of imports ($696m), followed by cars ($474m), petroleum gases ($350m), and medicines ($346m).  

Photo source: GeoStat

By Máté Földi