The foreign merchandise trade balance, or trade surplus, which represents the difference between total exports and imports, showed a surplus of QR16.9bn in July, up QR5bn on the same period in 2017.
In July, the total exports of goods (including exports of goods of domestic origin and re-exports) amounted to around QR26.6bn, which represents an increase of 45.3% compared to July 2017.
On the other hand, the imports of goods in July amounted to nearly QR9.7bn, up 50% on July 2017.
The year-on-year (July 2018 to July 2017) increase in total exports was mainly due to higher exports of petroleum gases and other gaseous hydrocarbons (LNG, condensates, propane, butane, etc.) that reached QR16.2bn in July, up 42.3% on the same period last year.
The exports of petroleum oils and oils from bituminous minerals (crude) reached nearly QR4.5bn (up 82%) and of petroleum oils and oils from bituminous minerals (not crude) reached QR2.4bn (up 60.6%).
In July, Japan topped the countries that received the highest amount of Qatari exports worth close to QR5.2bn (which represents a share of 19.6% of total exports), followed by South Korea worth almost QR4bn (a share of 15.2%), India worth about QR2.8bn (a share of 10.6%).
At the top of imported commodities during July were turbojets, turbo propellers and other gas turbines with QR0.6bn (up 81.1% on July, 2017).
In the second place were motor cars and other passenger vehicles with QR0.3bn (decrease of 24.9%) and in the third place was ‘parts of balloons parts of aircraft, spacecraft’ with QR0.3bn, showing an increase by 0.7%.
In July, the US topped the list of countries of major Qatari imports worth about QR1.4bn (a share of 14.6% of the imports), followed by China worth nearly QR1.2bn (12.8%), and Germany worth QR0.8bn (7.8%).