Euro zone trade with the rest of the world fell back into a deficit in January after posting a surplus in December, provisional figures released by the Eurostat statistics office showed today.
The 17-nation bloc had a deficit of €7.6 billion in January, compared with a surplus of €9.1 billion a month earlier, the EU's statistics service said in a statement.
Compared with January 2011, however, the deficit showed an improvement since it stood then at €16.1 billion, according to a revised figure.
In January, seasonally corrected figures for exports showed an increase of 1.3% on a monthly basis, while imports were 2.4% higher.
For the larger 27-member European Union, the data displayed a bigger trade deficit worth €23.8 billion in January, compared with a surplus in December of €1.6 billion. One year earlier the EU trade deficit had come to €31.2 billion.
