The National Department of Statistics (Dane) published the data of the Colombian imports and for the month of May the amount reached 5,418.5 million dollars, which represented a fall of 20.4 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.
This behavior, as explained by the entity, is mainly due to to the decrease of 17.8 percent that is evident in the Manufactures groupwhich went from adding 4,785.1 million dollars in May 2022 to only 3,935.0 million dollars a year later.
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The report indicates that the imports of this group fell, as a result of the lower purchases of chemical products and related productsthat registered a reduction of 26.7 percent and contributed negatively 8.2 percentage points to the variation of the group.
It should be noted that this segment is the one with the highest share of imports this year, with 72.3 percent; followed by Agriculture, food and beverages, with 16.1 percent; Fuels and products from extractive industries, with 11.5 percent and Other sectors, with 0.1 percent, this being the one with the lowest incidence.
The imports of the group of Fuels and products of the extractive industries they reached 651.0 million dollars and there was a decrease of 36.4 percent, compared to May 2022.
Jamie Moreno. WEATHER Archive
The product that contributed the most to the fall was Oilpetroleum derivatives and related products, with a fall of 36.3 percent, in addition, it contributed negative 31.5 percentage points to the total variation of the group.
On the other hand, in the Agricultural, food and beverages group, imports were 830.2 million dollars and presented a decrease of 13.4 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.
According to the entity, this result is explained by the lower imports of food products and live animalswhich decreased 16.6 percent and which contributed negatively 13.2 percentage points to the variation of the group.
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In addition to the monthly data, the entity also calculated the imports that the country made during the period that included the months between January and May 2023 and found that they increased 22.6 percent, if compared to the same period of 2019, before the start of the covid-19 pandemic.
By groups, imports of Fuels and products from the extractive industries increased 36.5 percent, Manufactures by 16.3 percent, Agriculture, food and beverages registered an increase of 48.2 percent and Other sectors was the only one with a decrease of 26.6 percent.
The trade balance deficit in May was 599.2 million dollars, as revealed by Dane.
