The manufacturing and mining sector in May enhanced the country’s trade deficit, accounting for 47.4 percent of total exports valued at N$4.4 billion, official data shows.
The manufacturing industry however recorded a decrease of N$473 million compared to April 2023 while the mining sector recorded an increase of N$2.1 billion from the previous month.
According to the latest figures from the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), the manufacturing and mining sectors absorbed 47.0% of the export bill in May.
NSA said in terms of imports, the demand side was primarily driven by the manufacturing industry, with goods valued at N$6.9 billion during the month.
“This represented a decrease of 4.6 percent from the previous month’s import bill of N$7.3 billion. Simultaneously, the mining and quarrying industry experienced a remarkable increase of N$3.7 billion, contributing 40.4 percent to the total imports,” NSA Statistician General & CEO Alex Shimuafeni said.
This comes as Namibia recorded a trade deficit of N$2.8 billion in May 2023, indicating a widened trade balance compared to the N$1.3 billion deficit in the previous month.
However, the deficit showed improvement when compared to the N$5.2 billion deficit recorded in May 2022.
“Namibia witnessed trade surpluses with Botswana of N$1.7 billion, Canada (N$691 million) and China (N$679 million). However, trade deficits were recorded against South Africa (N$2.4 billion), India and Peru both recorded a trade deficit of N$1.5 billion each during the period under review,” Shimuafeni said.
Namibia’s trade balance worsened in May 2023 when compared to the month of April 2023 with petroleum oils recording an import bill of N$2.9 billion and a deficit of N$2.5 billion, in second place was copper ores and concentrates with an import bill of N$1.7 billion and a deficit of N$1.7 billion.
NSA noted that Namibia exported uranium and precious stones (diamonds) worth N$2.0 billion in May.
“Uranium recorded a trade surplus of N$2.0 billion while precious stones (diamonds) yielded a trade surplus of N$1.7 billion. The country continued to be a net exporter of fish with N$1.1 billion worth of fish exported and only N$11 million imported during the month under review,” NSA said.
This comes as Namibia’s exports were dominated by uranium, accounting for 21.5% of total exports. Precious stones (diamonds) followed closely with 21.1%, and fish contributed 12.0%.
“Non-monetary gold and ‘Copper and articles of copper’ held the fourth and fifth positions, contributing 9.8 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. On the import side, petroleum oils constituted the highest valued commodity with 24.2 percent, followed by ‘Copper ores and concentrates’ at 13.9 percent, and motor vehicles for the transportation of goods at 4.2 percent,” the NSA said.
South Africa remained Namibia’s largest import market, accounting for 33.6% of imports. India followed in the second position with a share of 12.7%, while Peru ranked third with 12.1%.
China and Saudi Arabia completed the top five import markets with 8.3% and 4.7%, respectively.
