Euro Area Registers Healthy Trade Surplus in December, as EU27 Decline Eases
The euro area had an international trade in goods surplus of 11.7 billion euros ($15.6 billion) in December, compared with an 8 billion-euro surplus last December, Eurostat said Tuesday. The euro area encompasses Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland. The first estimate for the December 2012 extra-EU27 trade in goods balance, however, was a 0.7-billion euro deficit, compared with a 0.2 billion-euro deficit in December 2011, Eurostat said. The EU27 includes Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the U.K.
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From January to November 2012, the EU27 deficit for energy rose from 354.6 billion euros in 2011 to 388.6 billion in 2012, the report said. EU27 exports to most of its major partners grew in 2012 except for India and Switzerland, it said. The largest increases were for exports to South Korea, Russia, Japan, the U.S. and Brazil, it said. But the import pattern continued to be mixed, with the largest increases recorded for imports from Switzerland, the U.S. and Norway, and the biggest drops with India and Japan, it said. The EU27 trade surplus with the U.S. increased, while its trade deficit with China declined. Germany again had the largest trade surplus among EU countries, the U.K. the greatest deficit for January-November, it said.