German trade surplus shrinks in September

The German trade surplus contracted in September as the eurozone crisis crimped both exports and imports, official data showed on Thursday. Europe's biggest economy exported goods worth a total 92.5 billion euros ($118 billion) in seasonally-adjusted terms in September, a drop of 2.5 percent from August, the national statistics office Destatis said. Imports were also lower, slipping 1.6 percent to 75.5 billion euros, so that the seasonally-adjusted trade surplus fell to 17 billion euros in September from 18.2 billion euros in August. Taking the nine months to September as a whole, however, German exports rose by 4.1 percent to 825.9 billion euros, this time in unadjusted terms, while imports were up 1.2 percent at 682.4 billion euros. The office did not provide seasonally-adjusted data for the nine-month period. That meant the unadjusted January-September trade surplus increased by 143.4 billion euros from 119.1 billion euros a year earlier.