Leading exported goods from Honduras by value 2023

In 2023, the main exported products from Honduras were coffee and its byproducts, which accounted for a total export value of nearly 1.4 billion U.S. dollars. Bananas and plantains ranked second, at about 685 million dollars, followed by palm oil, with roughly 466 million dollars. Petroleum, on the other hand, was one of the most imported products by Honduras that year, with an import value of about 2.6 billion U.S. dollars.

Honduras’s leading trade partners

In 2023, the United States was Honduras’s leading trade partner, both in terms of imports and exports, with total approximate trade values of 5.1 billion U.S. dollars for American imports and 2.1 billion dollars for American exports. China came in second place for imports. The Central American country imported a staggering 2.3 billion dollars’ worth of goods from China. Fellow Latin American countries, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador were also part of Honduras’s top five trade partners. 

Decline in Honduras’s trade balance

The large trade deficit Honduras experienced with China and the United States is part of the larger picture of the country’s consistent overall trade deficit, which has seen a significant increase over the last decade. In 2001, Honduras recorded a trade deficit of about 1.78 billion U.S. dollars; the amount ballooned to over 5.41 billion dollars in 2022. This is a consequence of the country’s need to import large amounts of petroleum and other industrial oils to support its development. In contrast, the local resources that form the largest part of its exports are agricultural commodities.