Italian exports fly in January and the trade balance raise your head. The foreign balance remains negative by 1,6 billion, but marks a marked improvement compared to the end of 2012 (-4,6 billion), "summary of a limited surplus with EU countries (+0,7 billion) and a deficit with non-EU countries of 2,3 billion”. This was communicated by Istat, explaining that the balance in the trade of non-energy products is active for 3,8 billion.
Every year exports grew by 8,7%: the increase for non-EU markets (+17,6%) is much more accentuated than for EU ones (+2,6%). The decrease in imports (-1,8%) is attributable to the drop in purchases from non-EU countries (-5,6%), while purchases from EU markets are growing (+2,4%).
Compared to the previous month, in January there was an increase for both foreign trade flows, larger for exports (+1,4%) than for imports (+0,4%). The cyclical growth of exports is the synthesis of the increase in sales of goods to non-EU countries (+3,9%) and the decrease to EU countries (-0,7%). The expansion is determined by the growth of durable consumer goods (+5,2%), intermediate products (+3,8%) and capital goods (+3,2%).
The cyclical increase in imports derives from purchases on non-EU markets (+3,0%) and above all concerns intermediate products (+2,1%) and energy products (+1,0%). In January, the growth trend in exports is particularly marked towards ASEAN countries (+32,2%), Belgium (+27,0%) and Opec countries (+26,1%). Significant is the expansion of sales of food, beverages and tobacco (+21,5%), pharmaceutical, chemical-medicinal and botanical articles (+17,2%) and electrical appliances (+16,2%).
Imports decreased slightly despite the strong increase in purchases from Belgium (+36,1%), Turkey (+25,9%) and Russia (+23,6%). The decline is attributable to the decrease in purchases of crude oil (-27,0%) and motor vehicles (-21,7%). The increase in sales of pharmaceutical, chemical-medicinal and botanical items to Belgium, of machinery and equipment nec to Opec countries and of base metals and metal products to Switzerland contribute by almost two percentage points to the trend growth of the export.
