Egypt’s imports of non-durable consumer goods declined 19.7% during the first five months of 2020, to record $5.056bn, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).
The latest figures compare to the $6.299bn in the same period of 2019.
CAPMAS added that imports of non-durable goods decreased 26% to $820.574m in May 2020, down from $1.514bn in May 2019.
The agency also said that imports of medicines and pharmaceuticals decreased by 12.7% during the first five months of 2020, recording a total of $924.965m compared to $1.059bn during the same period last year.
Soap and cleaning products dropped by 31.2%, to register $64m in the first five months of 2020, down from $93m a year ago.
Sugar imports declined by 76.6% to $15.489m during the first five months of 2020, compared to $66.161m during the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the bill for wheat flour imports increased 151% during the first five months of 2020 to $2.845m, compared to the $1.131m recorded in the same period last year.
Imports of refined oils also increased, recording a rise of 14.6% to $347.966m, compared to the $303.546m last year. The country’s lentil imports bill increased 57.2% to $35.339m, against the $22.474m in the same period in the previous year.
The live cattle import bill fell 33% during the period from January to May 2020 to record $39.313m compared to $58.645m during the same period in 2019. The meat import bill also fell by 19.9% to $637.164m, compared to $795.447m in the same period last year, with fish falling 12.5% to $384.392m in the same period of 2020, compared to $439.302m in 2019.
Egypt’s footwear import bill declined 37.2% during the first five months of 2020 to $31.783m, compared to $50.64m during the same period last year. The toys import bill fell by 10.4% to $35.764m in the first five months of 2020, compared to $39.932m in 2019.
