Increased imports led to a higher trade deficit in February

In February, Estonia’s exports of goods amounted to 1.5 billion euros and imports to nearly 1.8 billion euros at current prices. The trade deficit was 309 million euros and grew by 238 million euros compared to February 2021.

Evelin Puura, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that, in February, imports grew much more than exports, resulting in the biggest trade deficit ever. “The bigger trade deficit was primarily due to trade in mineral fuels, where the value of imports grew significantly while exports remained at last year’s level. Increased prices also had an impact on trade in mineral fuels. Compared to 2021, export prices grew by 22% and import prices by 25%,” added Puura.

The main commodities exported were mineral fuels and electricity, wood and articles of wood, and electrical equipment. Compared to February 2021, the biggest increase occurred in the exports of wood and articles of wood (incl. coniferous wood strips, planed timber boards), which grew by 41 million euros. The exports of agricultural products and food preparations (incl. feed wheat) grew by 36 million euros, and the exports of miscellaneous manufactured articles (incl. prefabricated wooden buildings) by 34 million euros.

The main partner country for Estonia’s exports of goods was Finland, followed by Latvia and Sweden. The main commodities exported were natural gas and parts for engines to Finland, electricity to Latvia, and prefabricated wooden buildings and communication equipment to Sweden. The biggest increase occurred in exports to Latvia, Finland and Lithuania. More electricity was exported to Latvia, there were larger dispatches of natural gas and prefabricated wooden buildings to Finland, and bigger dispatches of transport equipment to Lithuania.

Re-exports from Estonia increased by 32% and exports of domestic goods by 13%. Goods of Estonian origin accounted for 71% of the total exports of goods. In the case of goods of Estonian origin, the biggest rise occurred in the exports of prefabricated wooden buildings and feed wheat.

The main commodities imported to Estonia were mineral fuels and electricity, electrical equipment, base metals and articles of base metal, machinery and mechanical appliances, and raw materials and products of chemical industry. The imports of mineral fuels (incl. oils imported for processing and natural gas) and electricity increased the most (up by 110 million euros), followed by imports of raw materials and products of chemical industry (up by 62 million euros) and imports of base metals and articles of base metal (up by 54 million euros).

The top partner countries for Estonia’s imports of goods were Finland, Lithuania and Russia. The biggest rise was also recorded in imports from these countries. There were greater imports of electricity and petrol from Finland, greater imports of nitrogen fertiliser and mineral fuels for processing from Russia, and increased imports of motor fuels from Lithuania.

Statistics Estonia performs the statistical activity “Foreign trade” for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications with the aim to determine how exporting and importing enterprises are performing in Estonia.

See also the foreign trade section on our website. Visualised data of Estonia’s foreign trade can be viewed in Statistics Estonia’s application.

More detailed data have been published in the statistical database. Due to rounding, the sum of rows in some tables may differ from the sum total of the column.
 

For further information:

Kadri Kütt
Media Relations Manager
Marketing and Dissemination Department
Statistics Estonia
Tel +372 625 9181

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