Austrian trade deficit almost halves in first half 2015

The Austrian trade deficit has almost halved in the first half of 2015, decreasing from 1.6 billion euros (1.78 billion U.S. dollars) to 870 million euros (973.8 million dollars), Statistics Austria said Tuesday.

The result came about from a stronger 1.4 percent increase in exports to 64.37 billion euros (72 billion dollars) compared to a much lower 0.2 percent increase in imports to a total of 65.24 billion euros (73 billion dollars).

Trade with fellow European Union member states resulted in a 1.34-billion-euro deficit (1.5 billion dollars), despite a 1.2 percent increase in exports to 44.51 billion euros (49.8 billion dollars) and a 0.9 percent decrease in imports down to 45.85 billion euros (51.3 billion dollars).

A surplus of 470 million euros (526.1 million dollars) was recorded for non-European countries, the statistics office said, though this was lower than the 2014 result of 675 million euros (755.3 million dollars). Exports increased 1.8 percent or 19.86 billion euros (22.2 billion dollars) overall, while imports increased 3 percent to 19.39 billion euros (21.6 billion dollars).

Austria's most important trading partner was once again Germany, while outside of the EU, China proved the biggest source of imports, showing an increase of 11.5 percent. Meanwhile, the United States was the biggest destination market for Austrian exports, increasing 19.6 percent up to June. Endi