According to a report released on August 17 by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, in June, the first estimate for the external trade balance of euro area gave a €4.6 billion surplus, compared with 0.0 billion in June 2008. In May 2009 external trade surplus was €2.1 billion, compared with the deficit of $3.8 billion registered in May 2008. In June 2009 seasonally adjusted exports fell by 0.1 percent month on month, while imports remained stable.
Meanwhile, according to the first estimate for June 2009, external trade deficit of EU27 was €4.3 billion, compared with the deficit of €19.3 billion in June 2008. In May 2009 the external trade deficit was €7.2 billion. In June 2009, seasonally adjusted exports fell by 0.3 percent and imports by 1.4 percent, both compared to the previous month.
In the first five months of the current year, the trade flows of EU27 with all of its major partners fell. The largest decreases were recorded for exports to Russia by 39 percent, Turkey by 33 percent, South Korea by 23 percent and Norway by 22 percent, while the imports from Russia declined by 43 percent, from Japan and Brazil, both by 29 percent, from Norway and Turkey by 28 percent.
The EU27 trade surplus with the USA, which was €27.3 billion in January-May 2008 decreased to €11.5 billion in the first five months of 2009. However, the EU27 trade deficit decreased with China by 8.37 percent, with Russia by 47.26 percent and with Japan by 40 percent.
Concerning the total trade of member states, the largest surplus was observed in Germany with €46.3 billion in January-May 2009, followed by Ireland and Netherlands. The United Kingdom registered the largest deficit with €38 billion, followed by France, Spain, Greece and Portugal.