Preliminary figures show that Malta registered a trade deficit of €149.5 million in December 2015, compared to €232.4 million in the corresponding month of 2014, the NSO said today.
International Trade: December 2015
Provisional data for international trade show that the trade deficit in December stood at €149.5 million, down by €82.9 million when compared to the corresponding month in 2014.
Both imports and exports decreased by €94.3 million and €11.4 million respectively. The decrease in the value of imports was primarily due to mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials (€82.0 million). Other decreases were recorded for machinery and transport equipment, miscellaneous manufactured articles, chemicals, and semi-manufactured goods. Regarding exports, mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials accounted for the main decrease (€39.3 million), with miscellaneous manufactured articles, and chemicals also registering decreases.
January-December 2015
Annual data for 2015 show that the trade def cit narrowed by €161.2 million, to €2,500.7 million when compared to 2014. Both imports and exports decreased by €385.9 million and €224.7 million respectively (Table 1a). Lower imports were mainly due to mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials, which decreased by €890.4 million. This was partly outweighed by an increase of €415.7 million in machinery and transport equipment. The decrease in the value of exports was mainly triggered by lower mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials (€252.5 million), machinery and transport equipment (€39.0 million), and chemicals (€13.9 million).
Malta’s trade imports from the European Union reached €3,532.3 million, or 58.7 per cent of total imports. There was an increase of €278.5 million in imports from euro area countries when compared to the same period of 2014. Main increases and decreases in imports were registered from the Netherlands (€197.8 million) and the United States of America (€315.9 million) respectively. On the export side the main increase was directed to France (€33.6 million), whereas Libya (€88.6 million) registered the highest decrease.