Eurozone trade surplus falls to 4.8 billion euros

The 16-nation eurozone's trade surplus with the rest of the world dropped 0.4 per cent month-on-month to 4.8 billion euros ($6.9 billion) in November from the October level of 6.6 billion euros ($9.5 billion), official figures showed yesterday.

After seasonal adjustment, imports increased by 1.5 per cent, the European Union's (EU) statistics arm Eurostat said.

Across all 27 countries that make up the EU (EU27), trade deficit for November rose to 5.8 billion euros, from 4.8 billion euros in October. In November 2008, the deficit was 24.4 billion euros.

In the first 10 months of 2009, EU's trade flow with all its main partners fell, except for exports to China which remained stable.

The EU27 trade surplus fell with the USA (+35.9 billion euro in January-October 2009 compared with +55.9 billion in January-October 2008) and Switzerland (+11.0 billion compared with +15.0 billion).

The EU27 trade deficit decreased with China (-111.3 billion compared with -138.8 billion), Russia (-39.5 billion compared with -65.2 billion), Norway (-26.4 billion compared with -43.8 billion) and Japan (-16.7 billion compared with -28.6 billion).