Azerbaijani foreign trade surplus exceeds $11 billion

Azerbaijan, Baku, October 15 /Trend A.Akhundov/

The Azerbaijani State Customs Committee has announced the results of foreign trade operations conducted with 149 world countries in January-September 2012, the committee told Trend on Monday.

The total volume of trade turnover of the country amounted to $24.556 billion, which is 7.67 percent less than in the same period of last year.

The surplus worth $11.026 billion was formed in foreign trade operations.

Around 7,595 legal and physical entities were involved in foreign trade operations over this period, of which 3,510 are legal entities and 4,085 physical entities.

The export operations totaled $17.791 billion for the first nine months of 2012, or 9.9 percent less compared to the same period of 2011.

The share of public sector in exports totaled $16.83 billion (94.6 percent), private - $ 849.7 million (4.78 percent), the share of physical entities - $110.74 million (0.62 percent).

As of January-September 2012, imports amounted to $6.765 billion, or 1.24 percent less compared to the same period of 2011.

The share of public sector in import operations amounted to $1.38 billion (20.4 percent), private sector - $5.08 billion (75.15 percent) and physical entities - $298.41 million (4.4 percent).

As of January-September, 1,992 goods were exported from Azerbaijan, while 6,024 goods were imported.