01Key Takeaways
- Egypt exported $42.55 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 18.35% from $52.12 billion in 2022, a pullback from a record year driven by high gas prices.
- Mineral fuels, mainly natural gas, led every export category at 18.15% ($7.72 billion).
- Türkiye bought 8.56% of exports, worth $3.64 billion, Egypt's top single destination, but no partner reached even 9% of the total.
- Egypt's top three destinations, Türkiye, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, made up just 22.49% of total export value, an unusually spread-out list.
025-Year Trend
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | $30.5B | $29.3B | $43.6B | $52.1B | $42.6B |
03Top Export Markets (2023)
| Rank | Partner | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Turkey | $3.6B | 8.6% |
| 2 | Italy | $3.3B | 7.6% |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | $2.7B | 6.3% |
| 4 | United Arab Emirates | $2.2B | 5.2% |
| 5 | United States | $2.0B | 4.7% |
| 6 | Libya | $1.8B | 4.3% |
| 7 | Spain | $1.6B | 3.8% |
| 8 | Greece | $1.4B | 3.3% |
| 9 | United Kingdom | $1.2B | 2.8% |
| 10 | India | $1.2B | 2.7% |
04Top Export Categories (2023)
| Rank | Category | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mineral Fuels, Mineral Oils and Products of their Distillation; Bituminous Substances; Mineral Waxes | $7.7B | 18.2% |
| 2 | Electrical Machinery and Equipment and parts thereof; Sound Recorders and Reproducers, Television Image and Sound Recorders and Reproducers, and Parts and Accessories of such Articles | $2.6B | 6.2% |
| 3 | Fertilisers | $2.6B | 6.1% |
| 4 | Iron and Steel | $2.3B | 5.5% |
| 5 | Plastics and Articles thereof | $2.3B | 5.4% |
| 6 | Edible Fruit and Nuts; Peel of Citrus Fruit or Melons | $2.2B | 5.2% |
| 7 | Natural or Cultured Pearls, Precious or Semi-Precious Stones, Precious Metals, Metals Clad with Precious Metal, and Articles thereof; Imitation Jewellery; Coin | $1.9B | 4.4% |
| 8 | Edible Vegetables and certain Roots and Tubers | $1.7B | 4.1% |
| 9 | Articles of Apparel and Clothing Accessories, not Knitted or Crocheted | $1.6B | 3.8% |
| 10 | Salt; Sulphur; Earths and Stone; Plastering Materials, Lime and Cement | $1.4B | 3.2% |
05Trade Partner Map
06Analysis
Natural Gas Explains Most of the 2023 Pullback
Egypt exported $42.55 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 18.35% from $52.12 billion the year before. Mineral fuels led every export category, worth $7.72 billion, or 18.15% of the total, dominated by liquefied natural gas. Egypt's natural gas export revenue surged 14.3% in 2022 to $8.4 billion, up from $3.5 billion the year before, as the war in Ukraine pushed European buyers to seek gas supplies outside Russia. That 2022 spike helps explain why 2023 looks like a pullback rather than a decline in a healthy, growing market. Gas prices cooled globally through 2023 as Europe secured alternative supplies, and Egypt's fuel export revenue eased along with them.
Electrical machinery ranked second at 6.18% ($2.63 billion), and fertilizers followed at 6.08% ($2.59 billion). Fertilizer production is closely tied to Egypt's natural gas supply, since gas is the primary feedstock used to manufacture nitrogen-based fertilizers, so a swing in domestic gas availability can affect both categories at once rather than moving independently. Iron and steel added 5.50% ($2.34 billion), reflecting Egypt's sizable domestic steel industry, and plastics contributed 5.39% ($2.30 billion), much of it feeding regional packaging and construction demand.
Fruit and nuts took 5.21% ($2.22 billion), led by oranges. Egypt was the world's second-largest exporter of fresh oranges by value in 2023, shipping more than 718,000 tons, with other estimates putting Egypt's share of global fresh orange shipments at roughly 40-45%. Precious stones, metals, and jewelry contributed 4.37% ($1.86 billion), and vegetables added 4.09% ($1.74 billion). Apparel not knitted or crocheted took 3.77% ($1.61 billion), built on Egypt's long history as a cotton and textile producer. Salt, sulphur, and cement closed out the top ten at 3.24% ($1.38 billion).
A Notably Spread-Out List of Buyers
Turkey bought 8.56% of Egypt's exports, worth $3.64 billion, the single largest destination. Italy followed at 7.65% ($3.25 billion), and Saudi Arabia took 6.28% ($2.67 billion). Combined, those three destinations made up just 22.49% of total export value in 2023, one of the lowest concentration levels seen across the countries covered on this site. No single buyer dominates Egypt's export list the way a single country often does elsewhere.
United Arab Emirates added 5.23% ($2.22 billion), and the United States contributed 4.71% ($2.00 billion). Libya took 4.32% ($1.84 billion), a neighboring market shaped by decades of cross-border trade despite ongoing instability there. Spain added 3.80% ($1.62 billion), Greece contributed 3.26% ($1.39 billion), and the United Kingdom took 2.85% ($1.21 billion). India closed out the top ten at 2.72% ($1.16 billion). That geographic spread, from the Mediterranean to the Gulf to South Asia, mirrors the diversity of Egypt's export categories themselves. Few countries covered on this site have a partner list this evenly balanced, and it means a downturn in demand from any single market is less likely to move Egypt's total sharply than it would for a country whose exports lean on one dominant buyer.
A Record 2022 Now Looks Like an Outlier
Egypt's export total climbed steadily through most of the five years covered here. It stood at $30.51 billion in 2019, then eased slightly to $29.32 billion in 2020 as the pandemic curbed global trade. It jumped to $43.64 billion in 2021 and climbed further to $52.12 billion in 2022, the peak of this five-year window and a year shaped heavily by the European gas-price surge described above.
The 2023 total of $42.55 billion, down 18.35% from that peak, still sits well above every year before 2021. Egypt's export base looks considerably more diversified across both categories and destinations than many of the commodity-dependent economies covered elsewhere on this site. That diversity should make its total somewhat less exposed to a single price swing going forward. Even so, the outsized gas revenue of 2022 shows that one category can still move the whole number sharply in an unusual year, when global conditions line up in a country's favor.
Whether Egypt's export total climbs back toward the 2022 peak or settles into a steadier pattern closer to 2021 levels will likely depend more on global energy markets than on anything happening domestically. Fertilizer, gas, and the broader energy-linked share of Egypt's exports still moves largely in step with prices set well outside its borders, even for an economy as spread out across categories and buyers as this one has become.