Egypt's foreign trade exchange has reached 65.6 billion U.S. dollars by the end of the third quarter of the 2017-18 fiscal year, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) revealed Wednesday.

Egypt's fiscal year starts in early July and ends in late June the next year, so the CBE report covers the nine-month period from July 2017 to March 2018.

In the monthly report, the amount of foreign trade during the period included 46.8 billion dollars in imports and 18.8 billion dollars in exports.

It is 5.3 billion dollars higher than that of the same period in the 2016-17 FY, which stood at 60.3 billion dollars including 44.3 billion dollars in imports.

The report showed that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the largest trade partner of Egypt in the nine-month period of the 2017-18 FY, followed by China, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Italy.

In a similar monthly report released in early June, the CBE said that Egypt's foreign trade reached 42.8 billion dollars in the first half of the 2017-18 FY.

Egypt has been suffering economic difficulties over the past few years due to political instability and relevant security issues.

In late 2016, Egypt started a strict, austerity-based three-year economic reform program including local currency floatation as well as fuel and energy subsidy cuts and tax hikes to contain a budget deficit, promote local production and boost foreign investment.

Egypt's reform plan is supported by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, half of which has already been delivered to the most populous Arab country.