A report by the Ministry of Economy and Finance indicates that Côte d'Ivoire's trade balance has declined in 2020. The trade balance increased from CFAF 1,307.4 billion at the end of December 2019 to CFAF 1,054.5 billion over the same period in 2020, a decrease of CFAF 252.9 billion.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance notes that this decrease is due to the health crisis related to Covid-19 which has impacted "foreign trade in goods in special trade and excluding exceptional goods, due to the disruption of marketing channels" as well as the decline in "demand for certain products".

"There was a surplus of 1,054.5 billion, down 12.5%, compared to the surplus of 1,307.4 billion recorded in 2019," says the report which specifies that "the coverage rate of imports by exports was 117.2%, down 2.4 percentage points compared to 2019," the report reads.

Exports and imports in value showed a decrease of 7,167.8 billion CFA francs (-3.8%) and 6,113.2 billion CFA francs (-0.5%) respectively at the end of December 2020 against 7,450.8 billion CFA francs and 6,143.3 billion CFA francs in 2019. The document states that the decline in the value of exports comes from the lack of sales of processed products (-5.2%) and mining products (-5.4%). On the other hand, exports of primary products increased by 0.5% due to a 2.0% increase in prices, which offset the 1.4% decline in volumes.