The trade deficit in July was higher than in the pre-pandemic period

In July 2021 there was a deficit in the Colombian trade balance of $1,209.2 million. Which means an increase that led the index even to pre-pandemic levels, reaching $898.5 million in the same month of 2020 and in 2019 reaching $1,103.7 million..

According to Dane, the result of last July 2021 is the product of exports by Imports amounted to $3,252.4 million and imports amounted to $4,461.6 million, while last year’s overseas sales amounted to $2,552.0 million and purchases amounted to $3,450.5 million.

Between January and July 2021, the trade balance deficit amounted to 8,165.8 million US dollars, while in the same period of 2020 it amounted to 5,364.2 million US dollars, and compared to 2019 this imbalance was 5,470.8 million US dollars.

It should be noted that July imports amounted to $4801.4 million and showed an increase of 31.7% compared to the same month of 2020.

This behavior is mainly attributed to a 32.5% rise in the manufacturing group It contributed 79.5% of the total value of imports, followed by agricultural products, food and beverages by 14.5%, fuels and extractive industries products by 5.8%, and other sectors by 0.2%.

When comparing purchases to 2019, manufacturing also boosted the score with an increase of 9.6%, reaching $3,818.9 million, while it reached $3,484.5 million in the seventh month of 2019 due to higher purchases of chemicals and related products (31.8%) . , which contributed 8.1 percentage points to the group difference.

in fuel and Extractive Industries Products, its purchases amounted to $465.8 million, a decrease of 40.7% compared to July 2019.

The product most contributing to the decline was oil, petroleum products and related products (-54.4%), which contributed a negative 45.8 percentage points to the overall group variance.

In January-July 2021, imports from Colombia amounted to 31454.2 million USD and recorded an increase of 28.9% compared to the same period in 2020. Similarly, there is an increase in foreign purchases from Colombia by 3.4%, if compared to the same period in 2019 .

China best selling Colombia

The country imported from China 24.4% of the total products it purchased during July 2021. It was followed by overseas purchases from the United States (10.5%), Mexico (6.2%), Brazil (4.9%), Argentina (4.1%), Germany (3.7%) and India (2, 9%).

The increase in imports from the United States in July 2021 is due to higher purchases of gasoline for motors and other oils (106.8%).

Compared to July 2019, The most significant contribution was made by purchases originating in China (19.8%), contributing 4.3 percentage points to the overall variance for the month.

The increase in imports from the Asian giant last July compared to 2019 is due to increased purchases of laptops.

Less time to import

The Ministry of Commerce introduced reduced response times to requests made by importers for four entities that are part of the Single Window for Foreign Trade (VUCE).

In the case of applications for approval before the SIC to import products approved by the SIC The Colombian National Accreditation Agency (ONAC), the response time went from 1 day to 3 hours on average.

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