Ethiopia imported various commodities valued at over 10.77 billion birr (1.24 billion U.S. dollars) in the past six months, the Ethiopian Customs Authority said Sunday.

Seife-silassie Ayalew, head of planning and study service with the authority, told journalists that the country has imported 796, 000 tons of goods during the stated period.

The volume of goods, imported during the reported period, exceeds that of last year's same period by 156,000 tons, said Seife-silassie.

However, he said Ethiopia exported various products valued at only 3.4 billion birr (392 million dollars) over the last six months.

He stressed the need that the country should manage to narrow the gap between import and export expenditure.

Seife-silassie urged local firms to export agricultural products as much as possible to be able to balance the amount of money being spent on export and that of spent on import.

Like many other nations in Africa, Ethiopia relies greatly on the trade of primary goods. The trade of coffee is Ethiopia's largest export, which generates 60 percent of its total export earnings.

Ethiopia's major category of import items was consumer goods, which accounted for about one-third of the value of imports.


Source: Xinhua