BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The euro zone’s trade balance posted a record deficit in March, Eurostat data showed on Monday, due to rising energy prices.
According to the statistical office of the European Union, the 19 countries sharing the euro recorded a trade deficit, not adjusted for seasonal variations, of 16.4 billion euros in March, against a surplus of 22.5 billion in March 2021.
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the trade deficit in the euro zone in March was even higher and stood at 17.6 billion euros, a record since Eurostat’s first data collection in 1999.
The value of imports (unadjusted for seasonal variations) in March increased by 35.4% year-on-year while that of exports increased only by 14.0%.
In particular, there is a significant increase in the trade deficit in the field of energy, which triples and climbs to 128.7 billion euros in January-March.
The European Union’s trade deficit with Russia, its main energy supplier, more than quadrupled to 45.2 billion euros in the first quarter, compared to 10.8 billion for the same period a year ago. a year.
With Norway, another major energy supplier, the deficit is 16.9 billion euros in the first quarter, against 500 million euros a year ago.
As for China, Europe’s largest trading partner, the deficit almost doubled to 91.9 billion euros over the January-March period, compared to 50.3 billion over the same period in 2021.
(Report Jan Strupczewski; French version Valentine Baldassari, edited by Kate Entringer)
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