Xifres de comerç exterior de Xipre

Foreign Trade in Figures

The geographical location of Cyprus (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 170% of GDP (World Bank) and is mainly oriented towards the EU. Cyprus’ main exports include mineral fuels and oils (29.5%), pharmaceutical products (19.7%), halloumi cheese (17.2%), waste and scrap of paper, glass and metal (5.2% - Statistics Cyprus); with imports being led by petroleum oils (14.7%), cruise ships and boats (7%), motor cars (4.4%), and medicaments (3.4%).

The main destinations for Cyprus’ exports in 2021 were Lebanon (8.7%), Greece (7.7%), the Marshall Islands (7.6%), the United Kingdom (6.5%) and the British Virgin Islands (6.1%); while imports came chiefly from Greece (23.9%), Italy (10.2%), Germany (6.2%), the Netherlands (5.1%), and China (5% - 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); in 2021, the country’s trade balance was negative by 2.9% of GDP, according to data from the World Bank. In fact, although Cyprus is a net service exporter - with a total value of exports of USD 18.2 billion (mostly travel, shipping and banking) against USD 12.8 billion in imports – such surplus was offset by the trade in goods (USD 10.1 billion of imports vis-à-vis 3.7 billion in exports). According to the provisional 2022 data from CyStat, total goods imports amounted to EUR 11.2 billion (+29.5% vis-à-vis one year earlier), whereas exports totalled EUR 4.1 billion (marking an increase of 23.8%). The overall trade deficit was EUR 7 billion compared to EUR 5.27 billion in 2021.