Foreign trade records deficit in December

Slovakia’s foreign trade generated a surplus of €3.357 billion in 2015.

Carmakers in Slovakia produce cars mostly for export.Carmakers in Slovakia produce cars mostly for export. (Source: Sme)

Foreign trade of Slovakia closed December with a deficit of €16.3 million, what was €0.6 million higher than the deficit recorded in December 2014. Total exports reached €5.155 billion in December, which represented an increase of 7.7 percent year-on-year, while imports also rose by 7.7 percent to €5.172 billion. The deficit was €0.6 million higher than the deficit recorded in December 2014, the Slovak Statistics Office reported on February 8.

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“Lower activity of firms and higher demand for import instigated by clients as a consequence of Christmas traditionally lead to ‘weaker’ results of the foreign trade during the final month of the year,” Ľubomír Koršňák, analyst with the UniCredit Bank Czech Republic and Slovakia wrote in his memo, while this repeated as expected also in 2015 when Slovakia’s foreign trade slipped into a monthly deficit for the first time that year.  

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During the final quarter of 2015 the reduction of foreign trade surpluses mitigated.

“In spite of the diesel gate of the carmaker Volkswagen, Slovak carmakers thrived towards the end of the year and especially thanks to their quickly growing exports we were able to see again acceleration of the growth dynamics of exports,” wrote Koršňák adding that on the other hand growth of imports did not further accelerate. “We assume that completion of EU-funded projects has played a significant role here.”  

2015 in trade surplus

Meanwhile, the whole of 2015 saw foreign trade producing a surplus of €3.357 billion, which was €1.346 billion lower than the surplus posted for 2014. Total exports grew by 4.9 percent y-o-y to €67.884 billion, while total imports increased by 7.5 percent to €64.527 billion.

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