September 29 (SeeNews) - Kosovo’s trade deficit the first eight months of 2016 widened 9.7% year-on-year, reaching 1.6 billion euro ($1.8 million), the country's statistics office said on Thursday.
Kosovo's exports declined 9.8% on the year to 204.3 million euro for the period January-August, while imports rose 7% to 1.8 billion euro.
In August alone, exports dropped 24.2% year-on-year and 29.4% month-on-month, decreasing to 21.4 million euro.
Imports rose 10.2% year-on-year and 12.3% month-on-month, reaching 270.5 million euro.
Kosovo's main export destinations in August were Albania, Macedonia and Serbia, with base metals and mineral products the main export items.
Food, beverages and tobacco, machinery, appliances and electric materials, as well as mineral products made up the bulk of Kosovo's imports in August, most of them coming from Serbia, Germany, Turkey, China, and Italy.
(1 euro=0.8918 euro)