South Africa emerged as Namibia’s largest market for both exports and imports in March 2022, the country’s statistics agency (NSA) announced on Thursday.
South Africa emerged as the main export market for Namibia, absorbing 20.8% of all goods exported, while it also emerged as the major source of imports followed by other countries including China, India, Saudi Arabia and Brazil.
The composition of the export basket for March 2022 was mainly comprised of minerals such as precious stones (diamonds), inorganic chemical elements, copper blisters as well as non-monetary gold, NSA statistician general Alex Shimuafeni said in the latest trade statistics report.
“Fish continued to be the only non-mineral commodity within the top five products exported. On the other hand, the import basket was mainly comprised of petroleum oils, civil engineering and contractor’s equipment, Precious stones (diamonds) as well as motor vehicles for the transportation of goods,” he added.
Shimuafeni said that in March, re-exports increased by 49.2% month-on-month and an increase of 67.7% year-on-year.
“The re-exports basket mainly consisted of precious stones (diamonds), which accounted for 21.5 %, inorganic chemical elements with a share of 16.7%, followed by copper blisters (14.8%), Petroleum oils (9%) and Civil engineering and contractors’ equipment (3.3%),” he added.
Meanwhile, Shimuafeni said the analysis for the commodity of the month for March 2022 focused on cheese.
“Namibia imported cheese valued at N$14.6 million during the period under review, mostly sourced from South Africa,” he concluded.
Source article: Namibia Economist
