Kuwait Issues 4,989 Certificates Covering 481.6 Million Dinars of Non-Oil Exports
Kuwait’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued four thousand nine hundred and eighty nine certificates of origin for non-oil exports of Kuwaiti goods in the second quarter of 2026, covering exported goods with a total declared value of four hundred and eighty one point six million dinars, or about one point five five billion dollars, the ministry said in a statement to the Kuwait News Agency. Fees collected on those certificates totalled twenty five thousand dinars.
| Destination | Certificates | Share of certificates | Declared value of goods, million dinars | Share of declared value | Fees, dinars |
| Gulf Cooperation Council states | 4,381 | 87.8 percent | 351.8 | 73.0 percent | 21,000 |
| Arab countries | 591 | 11.8 percent | 23.1 | 4.8 percent | 3,800 |
| European Union and the Americas | 15 | 0.3 percent | 106.8 | 22.2 percent | 198 |
| Other | 2 | — | 0.000425 | — | 4 |
| Total | 4,989 | 100 percent | 481.6 | 100 percent | 25,000 |
The distribution is heavily uneven. Gulf Cooperation Council states accounted for about eighty eight percent of all certificates issued during the quarter but roughly seventy three percent of their declared value. The fifteen certificates covering the European Union and the Americas were three tenths of one percent of the count and about twenty two percent of the value. Certificates for other Arab countries were close to twelve percent of the count and under five percent of the value. The share columns are this publication’s arithmetic on the ministry’s figures.
Measured strictly as declared value per certificate, the gap is large. The fifteen certificates for the European Union and the Americas averaged about seven point one two million dinars each, against roughly eighty thousand three hundred dinars for a Gulf certificate, a ratio of close to eighty nine to one. Those averages are also this publication’s calculation, and they should not be read as average shipment values: a certificate of origin is an administrative document establishing that goods are of Kuwaiti origin, and nothing in the ministry’s statement establishes that one certificate corresponds to one physical shipment.
The ministry listed a broad range of goods among Kuwait’s non-oil exports for the quarter, including liquefied gases, polyethylene, refined oil, mineral oil liquids, organic solvent, white spirit and copper rods, alongside foodstuffs, dairy products, medical oxygen, empty cartons and empty glass bottles. It did not map individual products to destination groups, so the high value attached to the small number of certificates for Europe and the Americas cannot be attributed to any particular commodity from what has been released. The ministry said Kuwaiti factories export first to Gulf states, then to other Arab countries, and onward to Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas.
The ministry attached a qualification to its own figures. Some Kuwaiti exports are shipped without a certificate of origin, because not every importing party requires one. The figures therefore cover only exports of Kuwaiti origin for which the ministry issued a certificate, and are not a measure of total non-oil exports.
The ministry said the figures reflected continued activity in exports of national products and a strengthening presence in regional and global markets, and that it would continue to support export flows and simplify the issuing of certificates, in order to improve the competitiveness of Kuwaiti products.
The certificate itself is an administrative document and costs very little. The ministry’s published fee schedule is graduated by the invoice value of the goods, running from one dinar where the invoice is a hundred dinars or less to a maximum of twenty five dinars where it exceeds a hundred thousand. The twenty five thousand dinars collected across all 4,989 certificates in the quarter is about five thousandths of one percent of the declared value of the goods they covered. Every figure in this article is the value of the merchandise, not of the paperwork.
Why it matters: The value and the count point in different directions, and that is what makes the release useful. The Gulf dominates the administrative flow at close to eighty eight percent of certificates, while the European Union and the Americas account for three tenths of one percent of certificates and more than a fifth of the value. That distinction matters for reading Kuwait’s non-oil export performance, because a rise in the headline value can come either from a broader flow of certified trade across many markets or from a very small number of very large entries. These figures allow those two effects to be separated, even though they do not identify the companies or the goods behind the largest certificates.
Looking ahead: Third quarter figures should be read by tracking the certificate count and the declared value together. A jump in value without a matching rise in the count would indicate greater concentration in a few large entries, while both rising together would be better evidence of a broader expansion in certified export activity. The figures should stay labelled as ministry certificate data rather than national trade statistics: the Central Statistical Bureau’s own non-oil export series, published through the Central Bank of Kuwait, runs to the first quarter of 2026 and records four hundred and forty eight point six million dinars for January to March, on a different methodology that is not comparable with the certificate count.
Sources: Kuwait Ministry of Commerce and Industry, statement to the Kuwait News Agency, 10 August 2026; Central Bank of Kuwait, Quarterly Statistical Bulletin, Table 40, Non-Oil Exports According to Destination, sourced from the Central Statistical Bureau.
