France narrows trade gap in March on buoyant sales abroad

Growing exports contributed to trimming French trade deficit by 949 million euros (1.24 billion U.S. dollars) to 4.69 billion euros at the end of March, customs' figures showed on Tuesday. "After two months of declines, exports are growing, driven by the finalisation of major contracts of transport equipment with a liner delivery and record deliveries of Airbus," customs services said. The foreign sales amounted to 36.2 billion euros, up from 35.7 billion euros in February while the imports were down to 40.9 billion euros after 41.34 billion euros. Thanks to aeronautical sales, which showed a strong performance over the period, France gained 2.88 billion euros in sales of 34 Airbus, up by 48 percent from February's performance. Over the past 12 months, the cumulated trade deficit already climbed to 65.82 billion euros in total, according to data issued by customs services. (1 euro = 1.312 U.S. dollar)