By: Justicia Shipena
The Statistician General and Chief Executive Officer of the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), Alex Shimuafeni has revealed that Namibia imported jewellery worth N$1.1 million in January 2023.
Shimuafeni made these revelations in the Namibia Trade Statistics Bulletin of the NSA for January 2023.
The imported jewellery was mostly sourced from South Africa and China, according to Shimuafeni.
However, he said Namibia did not export any Jewellery in January 2023, adding that analysis for the commodity of the month focused on both the exportation and importation of Jewellery.
He said international merchandise trade plays a crucial role in economic development as it links producers and consumers located in different countries into a global economic system.
The statistician general added that during January 2023, the country’s trade balance remained in a deficit worsening by 129.9% month-on-month.
“But an improvement of 27.6% year-on-year from N$1.2 billion was recorded in December 2022 and N$4.1 billion was observed in January 2022,” he said.
He indicated that Namibia’s trade composition by partner showed that South Africa emerged as Namibia’s largest market for exports and imports.
In addition, the trade bulletin showed that the composition of the export basket for January 2023 mainly consisted of uranium, non-monetary gold, copper ores and concentrates, and precious stones (diamonds).
Meanwhile, fish was the only non-mineral product within the top five products exported in the period under review.
Shimuafeni said the import basket mainly comprised petroleum oils, motor vehicles for the transportation of goods, motor cars for the transportation of persons, paper and paperboard, and sugars, molasses, and honey.
On re-exports, he stated that they decreased by 8.3% month-on-month and increased by 18.4% year-on-year.
The re-exports basket was mainly of copper ores and concentrates, precious stones (diamonds), and petroleum oils.
