Egypt's trade balance deficit up 6.8 pct in April year on year: report

CAIRO, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's trade balance deficit hit 3.87 billion U.S. dollars, up 6.8 percent year on year, said a report of the country's statistics agency on Thursday.

"Egypt's exports increased by 0.5 percent in April 2019 recording 2.58 billion dollars compared with 2.57 billion dollars in the same period of the previous year," the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said.

The report attributed the increase in the deficit to the rise in the imports of products, such as petroleum, crude oil, garments, and plastics.

Egypt's imports saw an increase of 4.2 percent to reach 6.46 billion dollars during April in 2019.