Cairo - Mubasher: Egypt's trade deficit rose by 12.6% year-on-year to $3.84 billion in May, versus $3.42 billion.
The Arab world's most populous country's exports increased by 1.4% to $2.44 billion last May, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said in a statement on Wednesday.
The increase in exports was mainly driven by the rise in the value of some exports, including fresh fruits and plastics, which rose by 17.2% and 5%, respectively.
On the other hand, the value of some exports fell in May, mainly crude oil exports that slumped by 6.2%.
Moreover, the value of imports grew by 7.9% to $6.32 billion, versus $5.86 billion in May 2017, the state-run statistics agency noted.
The CAPMAS attributed the rise in imports’ value to higher values of imports such as Iron and steel by 74.3%, in addition to crude oil imports which went up by 60.4%.
