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comparable prices in January-May, while one-day retail sales per capita made up BYN12 as against BYN10.3. Retail trade by trade companies accounted for 88.8% of the total and amounted to BYN15.3bn, up by 12.4% y/y in comparable prices. Trade by public catering facilities increased by 13.3% y/y to BYN955.2mn in comparable prices, BELTA news agency reported on June 18.
5.0 External Sector & Trade 5.1 External sector overview
Belarus' merchandise trade deficit stood at $847.5mn in January-April
following a $527.5mn deficit in January-March (vs $781.6mn in January-April 2017), according to the national statistics agency Belstat.
Merchandise exports increased by 25.3% to $10.5bn, with imports increased by 23.9% to $11.3bn in January-April.
The nation's exports are recovering thanks to the ongoing recovery in neighbouring Russia, Belarus' main trade partner. The country's GDP grew by 4.7% year-on-year in January-April, following a 4.8% y/y growth in January-March.
The Russian export of agricultural products to Belarus in per capita terms exceeds the Belarusian export of agricultural products to Russia, President Alexander Lukashenko told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on June 19.
"Here is an interesting fact, which may have fallen under the radar. Russia supplies more agricultural products to Belarus per capita than Belarus supplies to Russia," government news agency BELTA quoted Lukashenko saying. "We are accustomed to hearing that Belarus exports a lot. But in per capita terms Russia supplies more to Belarus than Belarus does to Russia."
At the same time, Lukashenko said that he is not going "to specify the figures". "Look them up. But the ratio is much larger. Russians feed us more food than
11 BELARUS Country Report July 2018 www.intellinews.com