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Zimbabwe recorded a trade deficit of US$100 million for the 12 months to June 2020.

This is after the country’s export earnings amounted to US$4.6 billion against an import bill of US$4.7 billion.

The trend, where imports are higher than exports was also evident for the six months to June after exports earnings at US$1.8 billion came out lower than the import bill of US$2.3 billion.

This is a reversal of the previous six months to December 2019 where the import bill of US$2.37 billion was lower than export earnings of US$2,48 billion.  In the month of June 2020 itself, there was also a trade deficit after the import bill reached US$407 million against export earnings of $330 million. Almost half or the import bill in June amounting to US$184 million was from imports from South Africa. — New Ziana.