Another major topic coming out of today's press conference was a deep dive into the country's external trade.
In her presentation, Statistician Tiffany Vasquez took a brief look at how the country's imports and exports underperformed last year. Here's her summary:
Tiffany Vasquez - Statistician II
"Total imports for the year 2020 amounted to 1.6 billion dollars. Imports dropped substantially by 20.2%, or almost 398 million dollars when compared to the year 2019. The categories of mineral fuels and lubricants and commercial free zones declined significantly, falling by 46% and 34% respectively. Other commodity categories also decreased notably with both machinery and transport equipment and other manufacturers each falling by 20% in the year. Likewise, imports of treated pine lumber and used clothing were considerably smaller in 2020 resulting in a 43% drop in crude materials categories. There were also increased observed in the year, particularly in the categories in beverages and tobacco and chemical products, where the increase in the latter was driven mostly by heightened imports of disinfectants, insecticides, and diagnostic testing kits. Now for domestic exports, merchandise export earnings for the year 2020 totaled 367.8 million. This was a decrease of 11.1%, or a drop of 46.1 million dollars when compared to exports of 2019. Of Belize's 5 major exports, bananas alone saw increased earnings for the year, growing by 10% or almost 8 million dollars in the year 2020."
From there, she gave an analysis of the country's exports for the first month of the new year. According to the SIB, imports are down by 18%. Here's more from Vasquez:
Tiffany Vasquez - Statistician II
"In January of this year, Belize imported goods valuing 131.9 million dollars. This represented a considerable 18% decrease, amounting to a drop of almost 29 million dollars when compared to imports of January of 2020. The categories of mineral fuels and lubricants, machinery and transport equipment, and commercial free zones declined markedly during the month. Expenditures on mineral fuels and lubricants dropped by almost 50%, falling from 22.2 million dollars to 11.6 million, a downturn which was prompted by smaller imports of fuel being purchased at reduced world market prices. Importation of machinery and transport equipment, such as aviation equipment, pumps, and vehicles dropped by 1/4th or 9.8 million dollars, to 28.3 million. Goods meant for the commercial free zones likewise declined by approximately one-fourth, down 6.5 million dollars to 20.4 million, with decreased imports such as clothing and handbags. A couple of other categories also saw noteworthy decreases during the month. Imports of manufactured goods and other manufactures together went down by 5.1 million dollars, to almost 29 million. That's a combined 28% decrease, owing to fewer purchases of metal structures galvanized steel coils, and gold jewelry."
And according to the SIB, domestic exports were up by a marginal 1.1%. Here's what the experts had to say about January 2021's earnings:
Tiffany Vasquez - Statistician II
"Export earnings for January of this year remained virtually unchanged when compared to exports of January of last year. As total domestic exports amounted to $16.2 million, up a negligible 1.1 percent or $0.2 million when compared to exports of January 2020. Sugar followed a similar trend, having had no discernible change in export earnings. As sales of this product amounted to $1.3 million in January of this year, almost equalling sugar earnings from January of last year. What is interesting to note here, however, is that this was despite a relatively notable decrease in exported quantities of sugar, indicating strong world market prices for this commodity at the start of this year. In contrast, animal feed provided the only distinct increase in the month, with earnings from this product growing sharply from a mere $0.4 million to $2 million dollars. Earnings from the country's remaining major exports, on the other hand, all declined during the month, with exports of marine products seeing the most pronounced decrease at $1.7 million, falling from $4.3 million to $2.7 million, owing largely to a drop in exports of lobster tails. Revenues from citrus products went down slightly by $0.5 million to $1.9 million, due mainly to reduced exports of orange concentrate. While earnings from bananas also declined marginally, down from $5.7 million to $5.5 million."
We'll take a look at the consumer price index for last month in tomorrow's newscast.
