Bosnia’s foreign trade deficit shrank 12.2% y/y to BAM 4.85bn (EUR 2.5bn) in the first nine months of 2013 due to rising exports and declining imports, the statistics office said in a statement. The reading equalled to 17.5% of the full-year GDP forecast, down from 23.9% of the GDP a year earlier, according to IntelliNews calculations. The 9-month export to import coverage ratio improved to 56.4% from 51.6% the year before.
January-September exports rose 7% y/y to BAM 6.3bn supported by higher external demand for electricity, food, leather, wood, chemicals and fabricated metal products. Falling basic metals and coke and refined petroleum products sales abroad continued to dent Bosnia’s export growth.
Imports retreated 2.3% y/y to BAM 11.1bn due to falling internal demand for energy and capital goods. On the other hand, demand for non-durable consumer goods such as food, beverages, tobacco, clothing and footwear and medicines, increased. The trend possibly indicates some recovery of individual consumption despite weak labour market conditions.
The main exports destinations for domestic Bosnian producers in January-September were Germany (15.7% share in total), Croatia (15.0%), Italy (11.9%) and Serbia (8.6%). The major import partners were Croatia (13.3% share in total imports), Germany (11.4%), Italy (9.7%) and Russia (9.6%).
| Bosnia- foreign trade | Jan-Sep'12 | %,y/y | Jan-Sep'13 | %,y/y |
| Exports,BAM mn | 5,882.7 | -4.7 | 6,291.9 | 7.0 |
| Imports,BAM mn | 11,410.5 | -0.3 | 11,146.8 | -2.3 |
| Trade balance,BAM mn | -5,527.8 | 4.9 | -4,854.9 | -12.2 |
| Source: Institute of statistics |
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