(News Bulletin 247) – France’s trade deficit improved significantly in the first quarter to stand at 29.8 billion, mainly due to the reduction in the energy bill, according to statistics published on Tuesday by the General Directorate of Customs.
With a contraction of 11.9 billion euros, this is a ‘record’ improvement, the largest since at least the year 2000, underline the Customs.
The improvement in the trade balance is explained by the sharp drop of 7.4% in imports, in a context of falling energy prices.
Exports fell by 1.6%, penalized by agricultural products due to a drop in the price and volume of wheat exported.
Despite this improvement, the trade balance remains much worse than over the period 2000-2020, specify the Customs in their information bulletin.
As regards the month of March alone, the trade balance expressed as a moving average over three months continues to recover strongly with an improvement of 1.5 billion euros to -8.4 billion euros, a level that he had not known for nearly a year and a half.
Copyright (c) 2023 News Bulletin 247. All rights reserved.
I have over 8 years of experience working in the news industry. I have worked as a reporter, editor, and now managing editor at 247 News Agency. I am responsible for the day-to-day operations of the news website and overseeing all of the content that is published. I also write a column for the website, covering mostly market news.
