Egypt’s trade deficit fell 5% in the first quarter of fiscal year (FY) 2017/2018 to approximately $8.9 billion, Egypt Oil & Gas reports.

The figure marks a decline of approximately $500 million from Egypt’s trade deficit of $9.4 billion in the last quarter of 2016/2017, according to statistics released by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).

The last month with publicly released import and export data is August.

Oil exports increased to $204 million in August, up 25.2% from $163 million in August 2016.

Year-on-year, non-oil exports rose by 16.2%, increasing from $1.692 billion in August 2016 to 1.966 billion this August, according to the monthly publication of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

Non-oil imports fell to $4.99 billion from $6.073 billion the previous year, a 17.8% year-on-year decline. Oil imports, however, rose by 63.4% to reach $495 million.

Total exports for the month were $2.2 billion while imports were at $5.5 billion.