Senegal’s trade balance deficit narrowed by 35 billion FCFA (52.5 million euros), on a monthly basis during the month of December 2021 compared to the previous month, according to data from the Forecasting Department and economic studies (DPEE) based in Dakar.
This deficit is estimated by the DPEE at 147.8 billion FCFA against 182.8 billion FCFA in November 2021. “This improvement is explained by the increase in exports of goods (+13.3 billion) combined with a drop in imports of goods (-24.7 billion), in monthly variation>>, underlines the DPEE. As a result, the coverage rate of imports by exports rose to 55.2% in December 2021, an improvement of 5.7 percentage points compared to the previous month.
Exports of goods, valued at CFAF 249.2 billion in December 2021, rose by 5.6% compared to the previous month. According to the DPEE, this situation essentially reflects the consolidation of exports of phosphoric acid (+13.8 billion), petroleum products (+8.1 billion) and food products (+3.2 billion). With regard to exports of food products, the DPEE underlines that they have strengthened thanks to external sales of fresh vegetables (+2.6 billion) and fish products (+2.1 billion). However, this increase is lessened by foreign sales of raw gold (-7.9 billion), mineral and chemical fertilizers (-2.7 billion), cement (-2.5 billion), titanium (-1.9 billion) and zircon (-1.7 billion), over the period.
Year-on-year, exports of goods increased by 61.4% (+94.7 billion), reflecting the increase in exports of phosphoric acid (+34.8 billion), non-monetary gold (+15, 2 billion), petroleum products (+9.2 billion), food products (+7.2 billion), titanium (+4.9 billion), zircon (+2.7 billion) and mineral and chemical fertilizers (+1.2 billion). The increase in exports of food products is linked to the strengthening of foreign sales of fishery products (+6.1 billion) and mitigated, however, by sales of groundnut products (-1.1 billion).
Regarding imports of goods, the DPEE notes that they fell from 475.7 billion FCFA in November 2021 to 451.1 billion in December 2021, i.e. a decline of 5.2% in relative value. “This decline reflects the decline in the value of imports of food products (-17.5 billion), petroleum products (-9.4 billion) and vehicles, transport equipment and automotive parts (-4.4 billion). )>> indicates the DPEE. The decline in imports of petroleum products is linked to that of foreign purchases of crude petroleum oils (44.1 billion), mitigated however by the strengthening of purchases of refined petroleum products (+34.7 billion). In the same vein, the contraction in imports of food products follows the declines recorded in purchases of rice (-5.9 billion), maize (-5.7 billion) and wheat and meslin (-1. 4 billion).
However, imports of machinery, appliances and engines and of pharmaceutical products attenuated this decline by posting respective increases of 12.5 billion FCFA and 1.8 billion FCFA, on a monthly basis.
Year-on-year, imports of goods increased by 26.7% (+95.1 billion) under the effect of the increase in external purchases of petroleum products (+29.0 billion), machinery, appliances and engines (+28.7 billion) and food products (+9.7 billion).
With regard to food products, the DPEE explains that their increase is strongly driven by the increase in imports of rice (+6.5 billion) and wheat and meslin (+6.2 billion) compared to the same period of the year. year 2020. On the other hand, imports of pharmaceutical products showed a drop of 3.8 billion FCFA.
