In the first ten months of this year, the value of imports in euros increased by 25.1 percent, while imports increased by 32.5 percent.
At the same time, the physical volume of imported goods increased by 6.3 percent, while the growth of export volume was 4.3 percent, according to the data on average prices in foreign trade of the Republic Institute of Statistics.
The increase in the value of imports pushed the increase in prices – while the prices of export goods increased by 20 percent from January to October, the prices of imported goods increased by 24.6 percent, which also means that the terms of trade of the Serbian economy worsened this year by 3.4 percent, published the daily newspaper Danas in an analysis of the increase in import prices.
In exports, oil derivatives rose in price the most, by 73 percent, while import prices of derivatives increased by 77.5 percent. However, the problem is that in 10 months, the physical volume of exports of derivatives decreased by 21.3 percent, while imports increased by 2.7 percent. The result is an increase in the value of imports of oil derivatives by as much as 82.4 percent.
The prices of chemicals and chemical products in exports increased by 38.5 percent, and in imports by 37 percent. The highest percentage increase in the physical volume of exports was recorded in the printing of audio and video records, as much as 2.7 times, but the prices of these products in export were halved. At the same time, the export of metal ore increased by 129 percent, but the growth of physical exports barely followed the growth of the price, which increased by only 7.6 percent.
On the other hand, the physical volume of coal imports increased by 2.4 times, but with a 24 percent price increase, so the value of coal imports increased 3.2 times in ten months.
In the food industry, which is one of the most important areas of the processing industry, although the physical volume of exports decreased by 3.7 percent, prices increased by 27.8 percent. It is interesting that the prices of food products that we import increased by 17.9 percent, so with the increase in physical volume, the total value of food product imports was higher than the value of food exports, Danas’ analysis pointed out, Biznis reports.
