Kazakhstan's foreign trade surplus edges down 0.9% in Jan-MarchKazakhstan's foreign trade turnover in January-March 2026 reached $32.9 billion, a 10.5% increase compared with the same period in 2025, the Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms reported.Exports rose 9.4% to 17.99 billion, while imports increased 11.8% to $14.91 billion.The foreign trade surplus thus stood at $3.08 billion, down 0.9% from a year earlier, the bureau said.The bulk of exports came from oil and petroleum products derived from bituminous minerals (44.4%), followed by refined copper and unwrought copper alloys (7.7%), copper ores and concentrates (6.7%), ferroalloys (3.6%), and wheat and meslin (3.1%).In the import structure, petroleum gases and other gaseous hydrocarbons accounted for 3.3%, passenger cars and other motor vehicles 3.2%, electric generating units and rotary electric converters 2.8%, medicines 2.5%, and telephones 2.5%, the bureau said.In January-March of this year, Kazakhstan's trade turnover with countries of the Eurasian Economic Union reached $7.3 billion, a 17% increase. Within the union's total foreign trade volume, Russia accounted for 88.4%, Kyrgyzstan 7.5%, Belarus 3.8% and Armenia 0.3%.Kazakhstan's main export destinations were China (19.5%), Italy (17.2%), Russia (8.3%), Turkey (7.4%), Uzbekistan (6.1%) and the Netherlands (5.9%).Kazakhstan's main import partner countries were Russia (33.3%), China (29%), Germany (4.6%), the United States (4%), South Korea (2.7%) and Turkey (2.2%). (ICE ALMATY)

Fonte notizia: INTERFAX