Zorena Jantze
THE month of June 2021 saw Namibia’s total merchandise trade strengthening to N$18.2 billion, signifying an increase of 29.6 percent and 19.6 percent when compared to the N$14.1 billion and N$15.3 billion recorded in May 2021 and June 2020, respectively.
The country’s trade balance, however, remained in a deficit amounting to N$987 million from deficits of N$3.2 billion recorded in May 2021 and N$126 million in June 2020.
This is according to statistics released by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) for the June trade bulletin.
Namibia’s trade composition by partner illustrates that China emerged as Namibia’s largest export market, while South Africa was the main import market.
The composition of the export basket mainly comprised of minerals such as uranium, copper, precious stones (diamonds), non-monetary gold and fish.
As usual, fish remained the only non-mineral product among the top five exports.
On the other hand, the import basket comprised mainly of copper, coper ores, petroleum oils, precious stones (diamonds) and ores of precious metals.
The June 2021 trade figures indicated that re-exports gained strength, raising by 26.9 percent month-on-month, but saw a decline of 17.7 percent year-on-year.
Like in the past months, copper had the largest share of all goods re-exported, accounting for 66.2percent of total re-exports mainly destined to Netherlands, China, and Belgium.
Most of the re-exported copper originated from Zambia and D.R.C.
Copper appears as the most dominant commodity on both trade flows, indicating the vital role the country plays as a major logistics hub for SADC.
The report further reflected that Walvis Bay is the main border post for both imports and exports of goods trade by Namibia.
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