Xifres de comerç exterior de Xipre

Foreign Trade in Figures

The geographical location of Cyprus (the country being a bridge between West and East), along with its good airlines and telecommunications infrastructure, has enabled the country to turn itself into an important regional and international business centre. The country's foreign trade represents 141.5% of GDP (World Bank, 2020) and is mainly oriented towards the EU. In that same year, Cyprus main exports were cruise ships (23.4%), petroleum oils (14.9 %), medicaments (13.6%), cheese (9.8%), and vessels (4.4%); with imports being led by petroleum oils other than crude (11.5%), yachts (7.7%), cruise ships (6.5%), and motor cars (6%).

The main destinations for Cyprus’ exports in 2020 were Greece (8.4%), Liberia (7.4%), the United Kingdom (6.5%) and Libya (5.9%); while imports came chiefly from Greece (21.6%), the UK (8.4%), Italy (8.2%), Germany (6.6%), and China (5.9% - Comtrade).

Cyprus' trade balance is traditionally in deficit because the country has to import extensively in order to satisfy domestic demand (particularly, for energy supplies). The country’s trade balance was negative by 2.5% of GDP in 2020, according to data from the World Bank. ). In fact, although Cyprus is a net service exporter - with a total value of exports of USD 12.5 billion (mostly travel, shipping and banking) against USD 9.3 billion of imports – such surplus was offset by the trade in goods (USD 8.5 billion of imports against 3 billion of exports). According to the provisional data from CyStat, in the first eleven months of 2021 total goods imports amounted to EUR 7,7 billion (+11.8% vis-à-vis one year earlier), whereas exports totalled EUR 2.9 billion (marking an increase of 15.3%).