OREANDA-NEWS. October 5, 2011. Belarus is likely to face a foreign trade deficit of 7% of the GDP in 2011, vice economy minister Alexander Yaroshenko told a briefing Thursday.

Imports that are not secured by customer demand appears to be unreclaimed now, Yaroshenko said.

Belarusian foreign trade deficit amounted to U.S. USD 2.648 billion in January-July 2011, compared to USD 2.975 billion in January-June 2010, shrinking by 11%.

Overall turnover of commodities and services reached USD 52.519 billion in January-July 2011, up 51.5% on the year.

Exports of commodities and services rose 57.4% to USD 24.936 billion, and imports increased 46.6% to USD 27.584 billion.

Commodity trade deficit reached USD 3.847 billion in January-July 2011 (USD 21.991 billion of exports, 64.8% on the year, and USD 25.838 billion of imports, up 49.3%), and service trade surplus amounted to USD 1.199 billion (USD 2.945 billion of exports, up 17.8%, and USD 1.746 million of imports, up 15.5%).