The 2020 Foreign Trade Report by Bahrain’s Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) reveals that the country continued to perform better to maintain its trade balance with an improvement of 8 percent supported by a 4 percent increase in the value of exports of national origin and 4 percent decrease in the value of imports.
iGA Foreign Trade Report provides a holistic outlook of Bahrain’s foreign trade with statistics on balance of trade, imports, exports (national origin), and re-exports.
“The value of imports decreased by 4 percent, reaching $12.73 billion in 2020 compared to $13.22 billion in the previous year. The top 10 countries accounted for 66 percent of the value of imports, with the remaining countries accounting for 34 percent,” the iGA Foreign Trade Report stated.
China topped imports with a total trade value of $1.76 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia with $933.61 million, and Australia with $875.26 million.
While Aluminum oxide was the most imported product with a total value of $880.57 million, Non-Agglomerated iron ores and concentrates were the second most imported products with a total trade value of $774.48 million.
Four-wheel drive cars came third in terms of imported products with a trade value of $464.15 million.
Exports of National Origin
The iGA report revealed that Bahrain’s value of national origin exports increased by 4 percent to $6.33 billion in 2020, compared to $6.10 billion in the previous year.
74 percent of the total value of national origin exports were purchased by the top 10 countries with the rest of the nations comprising just 26 percent of the national origin exports.
Saudi Arabia was the top importer of Bahraini exports of national origin with a trade value of $1.42 billion. The United Arab Emirates and the U.S followed with trade values of $549.03 million and $533.11 million respectively.
Unwrought aluminum alloyed was the most exported product of national origin in 2020 with a total trade value of $1.01 billion, followed by unwrought aluminum (not alloyed) with $957.48 million and Agglomerated iron ores and concentrates with $681.64 million.
Re-exports
Bahrain’s re-exports decreased by 15 percent in 2020 to reach $1.79 billion in total value, compared to $2.10 billion in 2019. 87 percent of the e-exported value was accounted for by the top 10 countries with just 13 percent contributed by the rest.
Saudi Arabia once again topped the re-export volumes with a trade value of $522.51 million with the United Arab Emirates coming second ($472.11 million) and the U.S securing the third position ($167.1 million)
Four-wheel drive cars were the most re-exported products in Bahrain with a trade value of $265.23 million, followed by Gold ingots ($143.22 million) and Agglomerated iron ores and concentrates ($92.83 million).
Overall Trade Balance
Bahrain’s trade balance, the difference between exports and imports reported a deficit of $4.60 billion in 2020 compared to $5.02 billion for the same previous year, an improvement of 8 percent.
