Greek trade deficit keeps expanding
Greece’s trade deficit in January-July 2007 came to 22.5 billion euros with imports growing at double the rate of exports, according to Eurostat. At the same time, the European Union’s trade surplus came to -1.3 billion, while the eurozone recorded a deficit of -16.3 billion, the EU statistics service said yesterday. Greek exports posted a 6 percent increase in the seven-year period year-on-year to reach -10.1 billion, but at the same time imports grew by 11 percent to reach -29.2 billion. Last year in the first seven months the trade deficit stood at -19.8 billion. In countries with a comparable population to Greece’s, Portugal in the same period recorded exports of -22.2 billion, Hungary -28.8 billion, the Czech Republic -49.9 billion and Belgium, one of the biggest exporters in Europe, reached -184.2 billion. Across Europe the biggest exporter is Germany with -559 billion.
