Russia’s imports from non-CIS countries in April this year fell by almost 20% year-on-year amounting to $14.9 bn. Month-on-month, imports declined by 14.2%.
According to the Federal Customs Service, 48% of the total customs value of imports in April was high-tech machine-building products
Chemical products including pharmaceutical substances used by the Russian pharma industry accounted for 21.9% of imports in April 2020.
The share of foodstuffs made 12.7% of the total customs value of imports, and that of clothes and footwear was 5.1%.
The import of ships and boats declined the most significantly in April dropping by 76% year-on-year down to $52 mn, with a month-on-month growth of 2.2%.
Vehicles import decreased by 55.2% year-on-year and by 44.8% month-on-month down to $969.9 mn.
Perfumes and cosmetics import was down 28.7% year-on-year and down 24.6% month-on-month down to $191.7 mn.
Knitwear import declined by 54% year-on-year and by 58.4% month-on-month down to $88 mn.
Vegetables import declined by 20.7% year-on-year and by 21.4% month-on-month to make $151.2 mn.
The decline in imports is due to the sanitary measures introduced to contain the COVID-19 outbreak that led to the suspension operations of many companies engaged in the consumer sector of the economy.