- Carsten Brzeski, Senior Economist at ING
The Euro bloc's trade surplus unexpectedly narrowed in April amid decline in exports for the first time in four months, according to the latest data from the European statistics bureau Eurostat. The seasonally adjusted trade surplus reached 14.9 billion euros (19.9 billion U.S. dollars) compared to 22.9 billion euros in March, marking a 30% decline on a monthly basis. In contrast, economists expected a 21.2 billion euros trade surplus. The lower surplus was attributable to a 0.8% monthly drop in exports and a 0.5% increase in inbound shipment. However, the Eurozone exports remain in a positive area in nominal terms since they added 9.0% to 14.9 billion euros trade surplus compared to 3.3 billion euros in the previous year.
For the European Union the trade surplus was 9.2 billion euros, down from 15.9 billion euros in March. Germany saw the largest surplus of 49.3 billion euros in the Q1, followed by the Netherlands' 15.1 billion euros and Ireland's 8.9 billion euros. Meanwhile, the U.K. experienced the largest deficit of 24.1 billion euros, followed by France of 20.1 billion euros, Greece of 5.3 billion euros and Spain of 4.7 billion euros.
Earlier this month the ECB lowered its growth forecast for the bloc's economy to a 0.6% contraction from the previous estimate of a 0.5% negative growth in March.
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