Newly released World Bank figures: Egypt’s 2025 trade deficit is its widest in 26 years

Egypt’s overseas purchases have outstripped its sales abroad by the largest margin of the period: exports of goods and services stand at $72.4 billion against imports of $115.1 billion. The finding puts the scale of the country’s trade shortfall, rather than either flow alone, at the centre of the latest annual picture.

Exports measure the value of goods and services sold abroad; imports measure purchases from abroad. Read together, they establish the trade balance, the difference between those sales and purchases. Egypt’s balance is in deficit, with spending on imports exceeding the receipts from exports. Both sides include services alongside physical goods, so the comparison covers a broad range of cross-border commerce.

The annual figures put a completed year into Egypt’s longer economic history. Their significance lies in the distance between the two flows: the country is buying substantially more from overseas than it is selling there. Export receipts therefore cover only part of the import bill.

For an economy with a trade deficit, other external income and financing matter in meeting that bill. A larger shortfall makes the availability of those resources a more important consideration. The next annual reading offers a straightforward test: whether the distance between overseas purchases and sales begins to narrow.

Built from 1 statistically detected findings; every figure traces to official multilateral data.