Albanian exports to foreign markets grew by 19% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of the previous year, marking the value of 74 billion lek.
According to the Foreign Trade Report published by the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the groups that have positively impacted the annual growth of exports are the building materials and metals with 5.6%, textiles and footwear by 5.2%, and minerals, fuel, and electricity by 2.7%.The imports of goods amounted to 146 billion ALL, increasing by 9.6% compared to the previous year.
The groups that have positively impacted the annual growth of imports are machinery, equipment, spare parts by 3.3%, minerals, fuels, electricity by 2.5% and textiles and footwear by 1.1%. The annual change in imports affected negatively the group of chemical and plastic products by 0.7%.
The trade deficit for the this period amounted to 71 billion lek, increasing by 1.4% compared to the first quarter of 2017.