(source: Sme)
Meanwhile, the whole of 2015 saw foreign trade posting a surplus of €3.303 billion, compared to last year’s all-time high of €4.7 billion. Total exports grew by 4.9 percent y-o-y to €67.865 billion, while total imports increased by 7.6 percent to €64.562 billion, the TASR newswire reported.
In 2015 as a whole Slovakia had the highest trade surpluses in relation to trade with Germany (€5.592 billion), Great Britain (€2.738 billion), Poland (€2.448 billion), Austria (€2.243 billion), France (€1.743 billion), the Czech Republic (€1.432 billion), Spain (€1.056 billion), Italy (€967.8 million), the Netherlands (€785.7 million) and the USA (€736.6 million).
Conversely, Slovakia reported the highest trade deficits vis-a-vis China (€4.41 billion), South Korea (€4.144 billion), Russia (€2.025 billion), Japan (€566.6 million), Taiwan (529.4 million), Malaysia (€454.3 million), India (€214.8 million) and Ukraine (€156.6 million).
The surplus of Slovakia’s foreign trade in January 2016 amounted to €279.4 million, a €68.7 million decrease year-on-year, the Slovak Statistics Office announced.
The total export of goods from Slovakia reached €5.164 billion in January, a decrease of 3 percent y-o-y. The total import of goods into Slovakia increased by 4.7 percent in January, amounting to €4.885 billion.
The export surplus of €279.4 million in January was good news; however the import situation indicates a weakening of investment demand, Slovak Central Bank (NBS) analysts said.
“The export of goods in January hasn’t succumbed to cooling in sentiments from the eurozone yet, and actually increased by 1.3 percent month-on-month,” stated NBS, as quoted by TASR. “The import of goods increased more slowly, by 1 percent m-o-m, and this was caused mostly by increasing intakes for future export. Import of goods for to deal with domestic demand decreased more significantly, which confirms our estimates on the weakening of domestic, mainly investment demand in the beginning of the year.”
