Growth of Trade Balance Surplus in the Sultanate of Oman

  • Muscat, Sultanate of Oman
  • 22 April 2021
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The Sultanate of Oman achieved a surplus of 3.75 billion riyals during the past year 2020; as the value of merchandise exports amounted to 11.726 billion riyals, while the value of merchandise imports amounted to 7.974 billion riyals, noting that the trade balance surplus in 2019 and before the spread of the Corona pandemic had reached 5.858 billion riyals. According to the monthly bulletin of the Omani National Center for Statistics and Information, the value of total merchandise exports, which include re-exports, decreased by 21.2 percent, while the value of oil and gas exports amounted to about 7 billion riyals, representing a decline of 31.4 percent compared to what they were in 2019. The impact of the global decline in oil prices and its derivatives was reflected in the decrease of the value of oil exports by 2.5 billion riyals, i.e. by one-third from what they were in 2019. The value of gas exports also decreased by 400 million riyals in 2020 to stand at 1.31 billion riyals.

As for the non-oil exports, they amounted to 3.03 billion riyals last year, while the total value of re-exports reached 1.7 billion riyals, and at the top of the commodities that achieved the highest amounts in export was regular minerals and their products, and the value of the exported during the year amounted to about 860 million riyals, a slight increase from what it was in 2019, followed by the value of exports of chemical industry products, which last year amounted to 641 million riyals, despite a decrease in their value by more than a quarter from the previous year.

Source (Ad-Dustour Newspaper-Jordan, Edited)