The Statistical Institute of Belize has released its latest figures on the economy's performance in the areas of external trade and the consumer price index.
The SIB says that during the month of September Belize's imported goods were valued at 112 million dollars, which is down by 21.1% or almost 30 million dollars, when compared to September 2019's imports of 141.9 million dollars.
Most of the commodity categories saw reduced imports, but the main contributors to the overall drop are in the areas of "mineral fuels and lubricants', "commercial-free zones, 'machinery and transport equipment"
For mineral fuels and lubricants, those fell steeply by 65 percent or 12.6 million dollars. In September 2019, this category was valued at 19.3 million dollars, and in September of this year, that number is only 6.8 million dollars. The SIB says that this was largely due to the fact that there were no imports of diesel, butane, premium gas, bunker C, and kerosene fuels for September 2020.
Imports into the Commercial Free Zones fell by 44 percent or over 11 million dollars, from 25.4 million dollars in September 2019, to 14.4 million dollars in September 2020.
Merchandise and imports for the first 9 months of 2020 totaled 1.2 billion dollars. That represents a 19% decrease or 274.7 million dollars. For the first 9 months of last year, merchandise and imports totaled 1.4 billion dollars.
Domestic exports for September 2020 amounted to 47.6 million dollars, which up by 35.4% or 12.4 million dollars. Last year September, domestic exports were valued at 35.2 million dollars.
For the increasing categories, revenue from sugar rose by 5.3 million dollars from 19.5 million in last year September, to 24.6 million last month. The quantities of sugar exported grew by 21% in September of this year, when compared to last year.
Citrus also went up by 3.1 million dollars. Last year, September it was 2.5 million dollars, and this year September, it was 5.6 million. SIB says that the increase is mostly due to heightened sales of orange concentrate. The quantities of this commodity more than doubled when comparing September of this year to September of last year.
SIB says despite the strong performance from the countries exports for September 2020, the figures for January to September of this year are down by 10.3% when compared to the same time period last year.
We'll take a look at the consumer price index tomorrow.
