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Somalia Foreign Trade
Somalia's major exports consisted of agricultural raw
materials and food products. Livestock was the principal export,
with sheep and goats representing the leading categories,
followed by cattle and camels. Banana exports rose sharply in the
1980s and by 1986 occupied second place, followed in descending
order by hides and skins, fish and fish products, and myrrh (see
table 8, Appendix).
The largest single import was food, with 1986 food imports
reflecting the effects of the drought being experienced in the
area (see
table 9, Appendix). Transportation equipment was in
second place among imports, followed by nonelectrical machinery,
mineral fuels, cement and building materials, and iron and steel.
In 1990 Italy was the leading importer of Somali goods,
having narrowly replaced Saudi Arabia. Other Arab states, such as
Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, were also important customers
for Somali products. In 1990 Italy was the primary country of
origin for goods imported into Somalia, with other nations such
as Norway, Bahrain, and Britain distant sources of imports.
Somalia consistently experienced an overall negative trade
balance, which contributed to its balance of payments deficit
(see
table 10, Appendix).
In summary, with the 1991 overthrow of Siad Barre's
government, Somalia faced a new era. Past economic experience had
taught valuable lessons. First, the Somali people have for
millennia been able to survive and even prosper in a harsh
environment, whether it be natural or political. Second, grand
economic strategies, whether from Benito Mussolini, Karl Marx, or
the IMF, have not provided Somalia with a means to live beyond
the subsistence level. Third, the handful of successful projects
in the colonial, postindependence, socialist, and IMF-led
economies suggest that a nondoctrinaire combination of approaches
could promote a richer economy.
* * *
Sources on the Somali economy remain scarce. The most
perceptive study of the economy is a journal article by Vali
Jamal, "Somalia: Understanding an Unconventional Economy." Jamal
has worked in Somalia as part of an International Labour
Organisation team that published Economic Transformation in a
Socialist Framework. Two books written in the 1980s provide
excellent background information and interpretation. Abdi Ismail
Samatar's The State and Rural Transformation in Northern
Somalia, 1884-1986 focuses on government economic policy,
largely as it has affected the northern region. Garth Massey's
Subsistence and Change: Lessons of Agropastoralism in
Somalia provides an insightful and carefully researched
examination of the agropastoral economy in the interriverine
area. David Laitin and Said Samatar have written a chapter on the
economy in their text, Somalia: Nation in Search of a
State, which forms the basis of the analysis in this chapter.
Statistical data are available in various publications of the
Ministry of National Planning and Jubba Valley Development:
Somalia in Figures; Annual Development Plan, 1986;
National Accounts Aggregates, 1977-1988; and
Performance of the Somali Economy, 1988. Further data for
this chapter have been culled from Ravi Gulhati's The Making
of Economic Policy in Africa and the World Bank's World
Development Report. (For further information and complete
citations,
see
Bibliography.)
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