Am Samoa imports went up while exports diminished in 202l

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — “The American Samoa Balance of Trade in fiscal year 2021 recorded a deficit of -$573.9 million,” according to the American Samoa Statistical Yearbook 2021 and cited under the “Trade and Commerce” section of the Yearbook, released recently by the ASG Commerce Department’s (DOC) Statistical Division.

The Yearbook reports that imports rose by 15.4% while exports dropped by -24.1%. Additionally, imports include government purchases worth $10.9 million, value of fish brought in for processing at the canneries at $256.1 million, and value of merchandise brought in for final consumption and intermediate use at $617.3 million.

Data summarized in the report, provides a breakdown of the “principle imports” recorded in FY 2021.

DOC points out that another sector of merchandized imports for sale not captured in the Trade Balance series is the Post Exchange (PX) - referring to the military PX, which Samoa News notes is frequently used by local military families.

For exports, the Yearbook reports that it’s primarily canned tuna and by-products. Data is also included in the report — for comparison — going back to 2010.

In 2021 total export was worth $310.4 million; a drop of $98.6 million from the 2020 exports of $408.9 million, according to the Yearbook, which gathered data from the pertinent ASG agencies.

It also says that American Samoa trading with other countries is a “one directional flow resulting in more imports and without exports.” And the Yearbook provides data on American Samoa’s trading partners, with the major one, the U.S.

Other American Samoa trade partners are Korea, Fiji, New Zealand, China, Samoa, Australia, and Singapore.

The DOC and ASG Treasury Department continued to collaborate on the improvement of International Merchandise Trade Statistics to capture imports, exports, and re-exports to include value, quantity, and unit of measure, country of import and origin, destination, as well as the classification of commodities in the coding system, according to the Yearbook.

Meanwhile, this section of the Yearbook includes “Business License” issuance and that slightly increased in 2021 with a total of 3,276 — compared to the total of 3,240  issued in 2020.