Business updates

Total exports for the second quarter of 2018 including domestic exports, re-exports and excluding ship’s stores and bunkers amounted amounted to Rs 17 billion, 6% less compared to the corresponding quarter of 2017.

Domestic exports amounting to Rs 13.3 billion, accounted for 78% of total exports in the second quarter of 2018. Compared to a value of Rs 11.3 billion recorded in the first quarter of 2018, domestic exports has increased by 17%, while comparison against the corresponding quarter of 2017 shows a decrease of nearly 4%.

Analysis by exports destination for the first semester of 2018 showed that the European countries remained our main markets, importing some 50% of our total exports for a value of Rs 15.9 billion. Among countries, the major destinations for our exports were UK (12.5%), France (11.4%), USA (10.1%), South Africa (10.0%), Madagascar (6.2%), Spain (5.9%) and Italy (5.5%). Compared to the first semester 2017, exports to South Africa increased by 10%. While on the other hand, exports to our main buyer, UK dropped by 1.0% followed by exports to Italy, USA, Madagascar and France experienced a drop of 40.8%, 19.9%, 19.5% and 15.7% respectively.

Total imports for the second quarter of 2018 amounted to Rs 48 billion, showing an increase of 8.3% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2017. During the second quarter of 2018, Asia was our main supplier with imports originating mainly from India (17.0%) and China (15.6%). The other major suppliers were South Africa (10.3%) and France (9.0%).

Based on recent past trends and information from various sources, Statistics Mauritius has forecasted total exports and imports for 2018 at around Rs 84 billion and Rs 193 billion respectively.

The full report can be downloaded from the website of Statistics Mauritius here.