The Central Bank of Libya’s Research and Statistics Department issued the report of “Libya’s foreign trade statistics for the first quarter 2022”, which our source obtained an exclusive copy of. The report contained several data related to Libya’s foreign trade with the world, in addition to detailed appendices of Libyan foreign trade during The period 2018-2021.
The total Libyan merchandise trade (exports + imports) during the first quarter of 2022 amounted to 12.8 billion dollars, compared to 9.6 billion dollars during the same period in 2021, achieving an increase of 32.8%.
The value of total merchandise exports also increased to 9.3 billion dollars during the first quarter of 2022, compared to 6.4 billion dollars during the same period in 2021, an increase of about 45.2%.
As for the total Libyan merchandise imports, they witnessed an increase during the first quarter of 2022, to record a value of 3.5 billion dollars, compared to about 3.2 billion dollars during the same period in 2021.
According to the report, the Libyan economy still depends heavily on a depleted natural resource, which is oil as a main source of income, which in turn is affected by the conditions of the global oil markets, where oil exports constitute more than 96.0% of total exports, which may expose the national economy to strong shocks as a result of large and sudden changes in the markets International Oil.
Also, exports of mineral fuels, fuels and related materials accounted for the largest share of the total exports during the first quarter of 2022, constituting about 96.8% of the total exports.
As for the trends of merchandise trade during the first quarter of 2022, the data did not show any change in the shares of the trading partners, as the exports of the European Union group accounted for about 68.8% of the total Libyan exports, thus achieving the largest percentage among the trading partners.
The relative importance of Libyan exports to the European Union countries (the Eurozone) has also increased due to the Eurozone countries’ dependence on crude oil as they are industrialized countries.
The Asian countries received 18.3% of the total exports during the first quarter of 2022, and Libyan exports to North, Central and South America recorded a remarkable improvement during the first quarter 2022 to reach 6.5% of the total exports.
As for Italy, the most important importer from Libya, where the percentage of what was exported to it alone amounted to about 25% of the total value of Libyan exports during the first quarter 2022, as the local market is still dependent on meeting the needs of all sectors and individuals of consumer and capital goods such as machinery, equipment, raw materials and intermediate goods necessary for the production process on foreign markets.
As for the countries of the European Union, they are the main source of Libya’s imports, as their relative importance during the first quarter of 2022 reached about 51.4%, in addition to the countries of Turkey, China, Italy and Greece topping the list of the most important importing countries during the first quarter of 2022.
Turkey ranked first during the first quarter of 2022, as the most important country from which Libya imports, where imports from Turkey alone represent about 25% of the total Libya imports.
