The Italian trade balance shows a surplus of 559 million euros with non-EU countries in August, against a deficit of 903 million in the same month last year. This was revealed by Istat, which specifies that the balance, net of energy, would instead be down compared to August 2012, from +4,8 billion to +4,6. On an annual basis, flows are in sharp decline, -15,4% for imports and -5,4% for exports.
In the January-October period, the overall surplus stood at 11,1 billion euro with respect to non-EU countries.
In August, exports from outside the Old Continent show a slight increase, equal to 0,2% compared to the month of July, while imports decreased by 0,5%. The growth in exports is mainly driven by consumer goods (+3,8%) and intermediate products (+1,2%), while the decline in imports is mainly explained by the sharp drop in energy (-7,0, XNUMX%).
On an annual basis, exports to the single market of South America (+16,4%), China (+14,4%), Russia (+1,8%) and the United States (+1,7%) are growing %) while sales to Turkey (-29,5%), Switzerland (-24,3%), South East Asia (-15,4%) and Opec countries (-12,2%) dropped sharply.
