YANGON, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar suffered 981.6 million U.S. dollars of trade deficit as of Jan. 4 in present fiscal year 2018-2019 which started in October, according to the figures from the Commerce Ministry on Saturday.

The total trade deficit showed slight decrease compared to the same period in last fiscal year 2017-2018 when it showed over 1.2 billion U.S. dollars.

From Oct. 1, 2018 to Jan. 4 this year, the country's total foreign trade reached 8.43 billion U.S. dollars, with 3.72 billion U.S. dollars export and 4.7 billion U.S. dollars import.

The country's foreign trade deficit totaled 3.97 billion U.S. dollars in last fiscal year 2017-2018.

The trade authorities are exerting efforts to boost the country's exports as well as to reduce the imported luxury commodities to decrease the trade deficit.

The country mainly exports agricultural products, animal products, fisheries, minerals, forest products, finished industrial goods to foreign countries while capital goods, intermediate goods and consumer goods are imported into the country.