ZAMBIA IN TRADE SURPLUS
ZAMBIA recorded total trade of K241.89 billion between January and December 2020, as the country continued to record trade surplus owing to improved exports.
Total trade for the period January to December, 2020 was K241.89 billion while that of 2019 stood at K183.20 billion.
This represents a 32.0 percent increase, says Mulenga Musepa, the Interim Statistician General at the Zambia Statistics Agency when announced the annual inflation rate for December 2020 yesterday.
Mr Musepa explained that Zambia in December alone recorded a trade surplus of K6.3 billion in December compared to a surplus of K7.2 billion in November, the same year.
He said the total volume of exports for the period January to December, 2020 was 6.6 million metric tonnes.
He explained that the road
transport accounted for 4.7 million tonnes, representing 71.5 percent of total volume exported.
“Rail transport accounted for 106.2 thousand metric tonnes, representing 1.6 percent while Air transport Air transport accounted for 4.3 thousand metric tonnes.
“The total value of exports through all modes of transport for the period January to December, 2020 was K145.0 billion,” Mr Musepa said.
Road transport, he said, accounted for K103.8 billion representing 71.6 percent, rail transport was second at K11.1 billion and air transport was third accounting for K3.1 billion.
Mr Musepa said other modes of transport accounted for K27.0 billion.
He said exports for December 2020 mainly comprising domestically produced goods, decreased by 0.1 percent to K16.3 billion in December 2020 from K16.4 billion in November, 2020.
This, Mr Musepa explained, was mainly on account of a 21.3, 9.2 and 8.1 percent decrease in export earnings among capital goods, raw materials and consumer goods categories respectively.
“Imports increased by 9.0 percent to K10.1 billion in December, 2020 from K9.3 billion in November 2020. This increase in imports was mainly as a result of a 20.9 and 8.0 percent increase in imports of capital goods and raw materials, respectively,” he said.
Mr Musepa however said the total volume of imports for the period January to December, 2020 was 6.4 million metric tonnes, of which road transport accounted for 4.5 million metric tonnes, representing 69.2 percent.