MADRID: Spain’s trade deficit fell by almost half in 2013 as exports hit a record level due to a successful push by Spanish firms into new markets outside Europe, officials said yesterday.
The shortfall of exports to imports for Spain fell 48.1 percent in 2013 over the previous year to produce a deficit of ¤15.9bn ($21.8bn), the economy ministry said.
Bailed-out Portugal and Ireland have greatly improved their trade balances, and so has Greece although the latest data showing the first surplus since 1948 suggest that this is not being driven by exports.
Spain, the eurozone’s fourth-biggest economy, exported goods and services worth ¤234.24bn, a 5.2-percent rise over 2012 and the highest level since records started being kept in 1971.
Imports reached ¤250.19bn, a 1.3 percent drop over the previous year as households continued to limit spending in a country where one in four people are out of work.
Out of necessity, Spanish companies have pushed hard into markets beyond its traditional markets in fellow European Union member states.
Exports outside of the EU accounted for 37.4 percent of the total last year.
Sales of goods and services to Asia rose by 10.3 percent and by 8.4 percent to Africa.
“The increase in exports to emerging markets which Spain has focused on like South Africa (+33.4%), Brazil (+28.8%), Middle Eastern countries (+24.9%), China (+4.7%) and Japan (+6.8%) is especially positive,” the ministry said.
Deputy Trade Minister Jaime Garcia-Legaz predicted 2014 “would without a doubt be a good year for exports” with more Spanish firms selling goods and services abroad.
“Spain’s competitiveness is improving and the number of exporters is increasing,” he told a news conference called to discuss the trade deficit figures.
Spain’s export promotion agency, ICEX, notes that the number of exporting companies has risen by more than 10 percent each of the past three years.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government is banking on exports to be an engine of recovery for Spain, which crawled out of recession with 0.1-percent economic growth in the third quarter.
It has changed labour rules to give companies more power to cut wages, fire workers or modify their jobs to boost competitiveness and reduce the unemployment rate which hit 26.03 percent at the end of 2013.
Spain’s trade balance in March logged its first surplus since 1971, mainly due to a sharp fall in imports driven by falling domestic demand.
In December the trade deficit dropped by 41.4 percent over the same year-ago period to ¤1.83bn.
Last year exports such as automobiles, medicine, chemical products, iron and steel rose, the ministry’s figures showed.
The export boom helped Spain crawl out of recession with 0.1 percent economic growth in the third quarter.
Spain’s economy shrank by 1.2 percent over the whole of 2013, however, as the nation struggled with the shattering aftermath of decade-long property bubble that imploded in 2008.
AFP
