The euro zone’s trade surplus grew in February, but the positive balance was helped by lower demand for imports rather than export growth, data from the European Union statistics office Eurostat showed on Monday.
The trade surplus for the 17 countries sharing the euro, unadjusted for seasonal swings, was ¤10.4bn in February.
Reuters reported that this was greater than the ¤3.0bn surplus consensus forecast of economists polled by Reuters.
The statistics office also revised January’s figure to a deeper deficit of ¤4.7bn, from a previous ¤3.9bn.
Although the euro zone showed a trade surplus, this was mainly due to reduced demand for imports, showing the bloc’s difficulty of increasing domestic demand as it lingers in a second year of recession.
The value of goods imported by euro zone countries from outside the bloc decreased by seven per cent in February versus February 2012.
For the month of January, Eurostat’s latest available month of full data, the euro zone’s energy deficit decreased slightly from a year ago to ¤30.0bn from ¤30.7bn.
Exports in goods like cars and chemicals rose during the same period, posting a ¤2.6bn increase year-on-year.
Europe’s largest economy Germany started the year with the bloc’s largest trade surplus in January, of ¤13.6bn, on an unadjusted basis.
Countries under European Union and International Monetary Fund emergency funding programs showed mixed performances.
On an annualised basis, Portugal narrowed its trade deficit to ¤0.6bn in January from ¤1.1bn, but Greece’s trade deficit rose to ¤1.9bn from ¤1.7bn.
Ireland’s trade surplus slipped to ¤2.3bn versus ¤3.1bn a year earlier, with exports falling 12 per cent.