Spain's H1 trade deficit falls by 68.8%

The Spanish trade deficit fell by 68.8 percent in the first six months of the year when compared to the same period of 2012, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness reported on Thursday. The Ministry stated that Spain's trade deficit reached a total of 5.824 billion euros (7.778 billion U.S. dollars), with exports reaching a record high from January to June. "This is a historical record: Spain had never exported as much as it did this semester since 1971", Spain's secretary of State for Trade Jaime Garcia-Legaz said at a press conference on Thursday. Exports increased by 8 percent to 118.722 billion euros in the first semester when compared to the same period of 2012, Garcia-Legaz explained, while imports decreased by 3.2 percent to 124.546 billion euros. Garcia-Legaz highlighted the fact that Spain is exporting to new markets, as exports have especially increased to non- EU countries, such as South Africa, Algeria, Brazil or China, which saw Spain's exports increase by 64.2 percent, 31 percent, 40.4 percent and 13.4 percent respectively. Meanwhile, goods shipped to the European Union (EU) increased by 4.7 percent, representing 62.2 percent of the total, while those to the Eurozone increased by 3.1 percent and represented 48.6 percent of the total. Garcia-Legaz said the government expects exports to continue increasing but emphasized they do not expect to have trade surplus by the end of 2013. "A trade deficit representing one percent of Spain's GDP, around 10 billion euros, would be reasonable ", he pointed out.