Egypt’s June Trade Deficit Widens 58.5 Percent as Crude Imports Jump 141 Percent
Egypt’s trade deficit reached 7.5 billion dollars in June against 4.7 billion a year earlier, a widening of 58.5 percent, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics said on Monday. Exports rose 37.4 percent to 5.0 billion dollars and imports rose 49.4 percent to 12.4 billion.
Both sides of the account grew strongly. The larger side grew faster, and one commodity dominates the list.
The petroleum trade runs in both directions
The agency names 4 rising import lines and 4 falling ones. Crude petroleum leads the risers at 141.0 percent, ahead of plastics in primary forms at 41.6 percent, passenger cars at 10.9 percent and primary materials of iron or steel at 3.6 percent. On the falling side, petroleum products dropped 29.2 percent, raw sugar 37.0 percent, wheat 9.7 percent and iron or steel doors and structures 5.3 percent.
The export list runs the same way round. Petroleum products lead the risers at 128.0 percent, followed by fresh fruit at 77.1 percent, ready-made garments at 47.7 percent and food preparations at 36.5 percent. Falling: dry pulses down 42.6 percent, pharmaceutical preparations down 13.2 percent, fertilisers down 12.0 percent and fresh onions down 0.4 percent.
| Trade, billion dollars | June 2025 | June 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Imports | 8.3 | 12.4 |
| Exports | 3.6 | 5.0 |
| Deficit | 4.7 | 7.5 |
Figures as published by the agency, which states all 3 levels for both months. Its own subtraction leaves a rounding artefact: 12.4 less 5.0 is 7.4 rather than the 7.5 it prints.
Crude in at 141.0 percent and refined product out at 128.0 percent, with refined product imports simultaneously down 29.2 percent, is consistent with a refining sector processing more imported crude for domestic use and for product exports, on our reading. The agency publishes percentage changes only, with no value for any individual commodity, so how much of the 2.8 billion dollar widening that trade accounts for cannot be established from this release. 2 assumptions a reader might bring to the release do not hold: fertiliser exports fell and wheat imports fell.
The cover ratio moved the wrong way
Exports paid for 40.3 percent of imports in June against 43.4 percent a year earlier, a deterioration of 3.1 points on our calculation, and the deficit is now 1.5 times the value of everything the country sold abroad that month.
Set beside the reserve figure the central bank published the same morning, the 57.2 billion dollar stock is equivalent to about 7.6 times a deficit of June’s size, on our calculation. That is a scale check rather than a cover metric, which the bank does not publish, and a single month is not a run rate.
The agency offers no analytical commentary, no exchange rate discussion and no energy price discussion. Its only causal language is the formula that the movement is attributable to the rise in the value of certain goods, followed by the lists above. There is no cumulative or fiscal year figure in the release, and no English version of it.
Why it matters: A 58.5 percent widening in a single month is large enough to matter to the currency and to the reserve position that has to fund it, and the commodity rankings point to energy as a large part of the story, on our reading, although the agency does not publish the values needed to quantify its share of the widening. Passenger cars, the line usually reached for as evidence of import demand, rose 10.9 percent, the second slowest riser on the list. If some of the crude is being imported to be refined and re-exported, the gross petroleum flows exaggerate the degree to which the crude surge represents domestic demand, and the release does not give the values that would settle it.
Outlook: August consumer prices arrive around 10 September and external trade for July on 17 September, which is the release that will show whether June was a step change or a spike. The figures to watch are the 2 petroleum lines: if crude imports and product exports move together again, the pattern starts to look structural.
Sources: Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Central Bank of Egypt.
