While Emmanuel Macron sealed many trade partnerships during his visit to China on Thursday, trade deficit figures continue to improve.
By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted update
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The French trade deficit on goods continued to decline in February, falling to 11 billion euros, thanks in particular to a fall in the energy bill, Customs said on Friday. The trade deficit for January has been revised down sharply compared to previous estimates, to 12.3 billion euros instead of 13.6 billion, already beginning a lull following a record year 2022 with a historic deficit of 164 billion. euros. Over twelve rolling months, the French trade balance in goods saw its first improvement since the end of 2021, at 167.3 billion euros.
In February, it was mainly thanks to lower imports that the situation improved. These fell by 1.2 billion euros, following a fall of 1.5 billion in January, under the effect of a reduction in the supply of energy products. The drop in energy imports is mainly linked to the 6% drop in the price of this energy, but also comes from a decrease in volume, detail the customs.
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The trade balance excluding energy is also down, according to the document published on Friday, with a deficit of 5.9 billion euros once morest 6.3 billion in January and 7 billion in December. For its part, the Banque de France reported on Friday a relative stabilization in February of the current account deficit, which takes into account services, at 3 billion euros, once morest 3.3 billion euros the previous month.