Israel's September Goods Gap Hit $3.24 Billion as Chinese Imports Slid

Israel's trade deficit in goods, excluding diamonds, was 10.6 billion shekels (about $3.24 billion) in September 2025, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported. Exports of goods came to 15.3 billion shekels, roughly $4.68 billion, against imports of 25.9 billion shekels, or about $7.93 billion.

Europe and the Americas each took 31 per cent of the month's exports, Asia 23 per cent and the rest of the world 15 per cent. On the import side, Europe supplied 45 per cent, Asia 33 per cent, the Americas 13 per cent and the rest of the world 9 per cent. In the July to September quarter, the bureau said, exports of goods to China rose 9.0 per cent while imports from China fell 21.2 per cent.

How one month fits the year

A single month of trade data is noisy, and this one was unremarkable. Independent tracking by Trading Economics put the September 2025 goods deficit at close to its level a year earlier, with imports easing on lower raw materials and fuel purchases and exports slipping on weaker manufacturing and mining shipments. Over the first nine months of 2025, on the same measure, the cumulative shortfall was substantially wider than in the equivalent period of 2024. Because it uses different definitions and adjustments, the figures do not match the bureau's shekel-denominated release exactly.

Why the China numbers move in opposite directions

The divergence in the quarter (Israeli sales to China up, Chinese goods coming the other way down sharply) is the most striking line in the release, and the material provided does not explain it. What can be said is scale: China is a major supplier to Israel within the Asian bloc that accounted for a third of the month's imports, so a swing of more than 20 per cent in that flow shows up quickly in the headline deficit.

Europe on both sides of the ledger

Europe's position as Israel's largest source of imports is the constant across these monthly releases. The European Union accounted for 31.7 per cent of Israel's total trade in goods with the world in 2025, worth €43.3 billion, according to European Commission figures, under an Association Agreement in force since June 2000 that created a free trade area between the two. The monthly series itself is published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on a diamond-excluded basis, because Israel's role as a diamond cutting and trading centre would otherwise distort both sides of the account.

What these figures do not cover

The release deals only in goods. Israel's largest export category by value is technology, and most of that is sold as software and services, which do not appear in merchandise trade at all: high-technology firms accounted for 58 per cent of Israel's total exports in 2025, the Jerusalem Post reported from Israel Innovation Authority data. The statement also gives no country detail beyond China, no product breakdown, no comparison with September 2024, and no indication of whether the figures are seasonally adjusted.