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BCN-41
GERMANY-ECONOMY-INDICATOR-TRADE
November trade rebound little comfort for Germany
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Jan 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Germany’s trade surplus grew in
November, official figures showed Wednesday, but the technical increase
offered little comfort for watchers of Europe’s powerhouse economy.
The country exported some 19 billion euros ($21.8 billion) more than it
imported in the penultimate month of 2018, according to seasonally-adjusted
figures provided by federal statistics authority Destatis.
While that was a 6.1 percent increase over October’s figure, the effect was
primarily a technical one.
Exports fell 0.4 percent month-on-month, to 116.3 billion euros on an
unadjusted basis, while imports slid more sharply, dropping 1.6 percent to
95.7 billion.
In November 2017, the trade surplus was 22.3 billion euros.
Among European nations, Germany has been the target of the toughest
rhetoric from US President Donald Trump as he set out to reduce America’s
trade deficit.
The Republican leader has so far held off levying swingeing tariffs on
European car imports as he threatened to do after hitting some metals with
new import taxes last year.
But there has been little sign of progress from trade talks between the US
and European Union.
Germany alongside other European economies has suffered knock-on effects
and uncertainty from Trump’s bigger trade conflict with China, weakness in
emerging markets and the growing risk of Britain quitting the EU without a
deal.
“There simply seem to be too many crises in global trade for the German
export sector to defy them,” said ING Diba bank economist Carsten Brzeski.
The data reinforce the possibility that the country suffered a “technical
recession” — two successive quarters of economic shrinkage — in the second
half of 2017, he added.
“Still, private consumption, government expenditures and investments could
prevent” such an effect, he added.
BSS/AFP/HR/1455