The monthly trade deficit increased by 92.8 MD in April 2021, compared to March 2021, to 1,175.9 MD, reads a report on "Foreign Trade at Current Prices (April 2021)," released, Thursday, by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). The coverage rate lost 1.7 points in April 2021 compared to March 2021, standing at 77.2%. This deficit is caused by a 1.8% decrease in exports, mainly due to lower exports in the agriculture and agro-food industry sectors (-18.6%) as well as energy and lubricants (-18.3%).
On the other hand, imports saw a slight rise of 0.4% due to a considerable increase in the purchases of energy products (+ 47.1%). The INS report also showed a decrease in exports with most countries, except for Germany (+ 2.5%), particularly with France (-6.9%) and Italy (-8.2%), resulting in a decline at European level (-4.7%), as well as the Maghreb countries (- 13.2%) and Turkey (-46.7%). Imports from Europe stagnated (+ 0.2%), while purchases from the Arab Maghreb Union and China improved by 4.7% and 1.6%, respectively. On the other hand, imports from Turkey fell (-8.1%).