South Africa's trade deficit widened from 11.39 billion rand (about 1.1 U.S. billion dollars) for March to 13.03 billion rand (about 1.2 billion dollars) for April 2014, according to data released on Friday.
The statistics released by South African Revenue Service (SARS) include trade data with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS).
The deficit can be attributed to exports of 77.42 billion rand (7.37 billion dollars) and imports of 90.45 billion rand (about 8. 7 billion dollars), the SARS said.
Exports decreased from March to April by 2.06 billion rand (about 196 million dollars), a 2.6-percent decline, and imports decreased from March to April by 910 million rand (about 87 million dollars), a one-percent decline.
The latest data brought the cumulative deficit for 2014 to 40. 96 billion rand (about 3.9 billion dollars), compared to 30.66 billion rand (about 2.9 billion dollars) in 2013.