Georgia’s Foreign Trade in Q1’15

Georgia’s foreign trade declined 10% year-to-year in the first three months of 2015 to USD 2.27 billion with trade gap increasing 11.6% y/y to USD 1.27 billion, according to preliminary data released by the state statistics office, Geostat, on April 21.

Imports were down by 3% y/y in January-March 2015 to USD 1.77 billion.

Exports from Georgia declined by 27.7% in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the same period of last year to USD 502.9 million, caused mostly by decreasing re-export of vehicles, as well as by falling exports of wine.

Georgia’s trade turnover with the EU-member states stood at USD 637 million in the first quarter of 2015, 0.4% increase over the same period of last year.

Exports to the EU-member states were up by 21% y/y in January-March 2015 to USD 170 million, accounting for 33.8% of Georgia’s total exports, and imports were down by 5% y/y to USD 467 million, accounting for 26% of country’s total imports.

Trade turnover with Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) declined by 25% y/y in the first quarter of 2015 to USD 675 million.

Georgia’s exports to CIS member states declined by 55% y/y to USD 175 million, accounting for 34.8% of country’s total exports, and imports were down by 2% y/y to USD 500 million.

Last week the Fitch ratings agency revised outlook on Georgia down from ‘positive’ to ‘stable’ and affirmed country’s sovereign rating ‘BB-‘, three notches short of investment grade. The ratings agency said that multiple external shocks following downturn in Russia had “a highly adverse impact” on Georgia with falling exports and remittances and depreciation of the national currency lari. Fitch said it expects Georgia’s exports to decline by 20% in 2015 and country’s current account deficit to widen to about 14% of GDP this year from 9% in 2014. The ratings agency also expects Georgia’s economic growth to slow to 2% this year.

Turkey remains Georgia’s largest trading partner with the turnover reaching USD 360.9 million in the first quarter of 2015. Georgian exports to Turkey declined by 17.5% y/y to USD 40.7 million and imports remained almost the same as in the same period of last year at USD 320.2 million.

Turkey is followed by Azerbaijan with trade turnover of USD 214.2 million in the first quarter; exports to Azerbaijan more than halved to USD 63.48 million, compared to last year’s first quarter, mostly due to decline in re-export of vehicles from USD 79.8 million in January-March 2014 to USD 24.8 million in the same period of this year. Decline is attributed to regulations imposed by Azerbaijan starting from April, 2014, which bans import of vehicles to Azerbaijan manufactured in EU before 2005, in the U.S. before 2004 and in Japan before 2011. Imports from Azerbaijan were down by 16.5% y/y to USD 150.7 million.

China was the third largest trading partner with the turnover of USD 192.1 million in the first quarter. Export to China more than doubled to USD 24.1 million in the first quarter, mainly because of increase in export of copper ores and concentrates from USD 4.7 million to USD 19.1 million. Imports from China increased by 7.2% y/y to USD 167.9 million in the first quarter of 2015.

China is followed by Russia with the trade turnover of USD 170 million; exports to Russia suffered almost 2.5-fold y/y decline to USD 27.2 million in the first quarter of 2015.

Russia is followed by Germany with trade turnover of USD 137.2 million; Ukraine – USD 128.9 million; the United States – USD 93.9 million; Armenia – USD 89.2 million; Bulgaria – USD 80.7 million; Italy – USD 62.4 million.

Re-export of vehicles no longer leads the pack in Georgia’s total exports, which has suffered 2.6-fold decline in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the same period of last year to USD 57.7 million.
 
Copper ores and concentrates were on top of the list of exports in the first quarter with USD 61.1 million, 19.3% y/y increase; Georgia exported hazelnut worth of USD 51.5 million in the first quarter up from USD 21.6 million in the same period of last year, followed by ferroalloys – USD 48.2 million (30.9% y/y decline); medicines – USD 25.1 million (84% y/y increase); nitrogen fertilizers – USD 24 million (47.3% y/y decline); mineral waters – USD 22.6 million (34.2% y/y decline); wine – USD 15.5 million (three-fold decline over last year’s first quarter); crude oil – USD 12.7 million (85.3% y/y increase); raw or semi-processed gold – USD 12.6 million (54.9% y/y increase).

Hydrocarbons were on top of the list of imports with USD 149.8 million in the first quarter, followed by vehicles with USD 134.5 million; oil products – USD 129.4 million; medicines – USD 69.2 million; copper ores and concentrates – USD 49.9 million; mobile and other wireless phones – USD 35 million; wheat – USD 29 million; electricity – USD 19.6 million; metal construction materials – USD 16.4 million; bars and rods of iron and steel – USD 16.3 million.

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