Foreign trade keeps falling

September 13, BPN. In the first seven months of 2022, Belarusian foreign trade in goods and services fell by 6.7 percent year on year and by 6.4 percent in the first half of 2022, according to the National Statistics Committee (Belstat).

Exports fell by 3.5 percent and imports, by 9.7 percent.

The decline in foreign trade, especially imports, comes amid Western sanctions that had been introduced against the Belarusian authorities over allegations of vote rigging in the 2020 presidential election, the forced landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk in 2021, and complicity in the Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2022.

The National Bank, using its own calculation methods, reported a foreign trade surplus of $2.8 billion between January and July 2022. It also said that Belarusian exports fell by 4.2 percent to $25.2 billion, while imports grew by 0.8 percent to $22.4.