BUCHAREST, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Romania continued to strengthen its position as the largest trading partner of Moldova in the first four months of 2019, with bilateral trade accounting for 18.16 percent of the latter's total trade, according to news reports reaching here on Saturday from Chisinau, capital of Moldova.
The total trade volume between the two countries was 513.9 million U.S. dollars in the first four months of the current year, as Moldova imported 255.6 million dollars from Romania and exported 258.3 million, according to the latest data of Moldova's National Bureau of Statistics (BNS) quoted by official Moldpres news agency.
Over 42 percent of Moldovan goods exported to EU states were on the Romanian market during the above period, the BNS data also showed.
Romania, Germany, Turkey, Italy and Russia were the top five destination markets of Moldova, while Russia, Romania, China, Ukraine and Germany were the main source countries for Moldova imports.
Close to a quarter (24.9 percent) of exports in Moldova involved transport equipment and machinery in the above time span, while food and live animals contributed to 22.83 percent on export.
But Moldova's largest imported products were also transport equipment and machinery, accounting for 22.89 percent of the total imports, followed by manufactured goods, mineral fuels, chemical products and food.
In January-April 2019, exports totaled 948.7 million dollars, a year-on-year growth of 8.1 percent, while imports amounted to 1.88 billion dollars, an increase of 6.2 percent, resulting in a trade deficit of 931.9 million dollars, up 4.4 percent compared with the same period last year.