Building of the Jaguar Land Rover plant on former fields. (source: TASR )
Slovakia’s foreign trade returned to a surplus in September, reaching €450 million but overall turnover was somewhat disappointing, said Ľubomír Koršňák, analyst of the UniCredit Bank Czech Republic and Slovakia as cited by the TASR newswire.
Slovakia’s foreign trade produced a surplus of €450 million in September 2017, which was a decrease of €30.5 million compared to September 2016, the Slovak Statistics Office reported on October 9. Total exports amounted to €6.588 billion in September, which represented an increase of 6.1 percent year-on-year. Imports grew by 7.1 percent to €6.138 billion.
The analyst expects foreign trade surpluses to be more moderate in the next few months, being related to growing household consumption and major investments in the automotive industry. After production is launched at Jaguar Land Rover in Nitra later in 2018, Slovakia’s foreign trade surpluses should begin to be more pronounced again.
Analysts from the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) pointed out that Slovakia’s exports fell in September on a monthly basis but this wasn’t so significant as to erase the good August results, so exports on a quarterly basis were up by 2.8 percent, recording the best quarter in 2017. The country’s exports in the first three quarters overall rose by 3.4 percent year-on-year.
The first nine months of 2017 saw foreign trade generate a surplus of €2.237 billion, which was €725.3 million lower than the surplus posted for the same period of 2016. Total exports rose by 6.8 percent y-o-y to €54.795 billion, while total imports went up by 8.7 percent to €52.558 billion.
