Austria sees strong foreign trade boost in first 9 months

VIENNA, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Austrian trade has seen a significant boost in the first nine months of the year, with both imports and exports increasing notably, Statistics Austria revealed on Monday.

In its latest report, the statistics office said imports from January to September saw an 8.4 percent year-over-year increase to reach 109.17 billion euros (129.4 billion U.S. dollars), while exports increased 7.6 percent to reach 105.18 billion euros (124 billion U.S. dollars).

Trade with fellow European Union member states was strong, imports increasing 7.1 percent, while exports saw an even greater boost, up 7.8 percent.

Germany was once again Austria's strongest trading partner, though the 5.9 percent boost in exports there was slightly below Austria's global export average, said the report.

Outside of the union, trade was also strong, with both imports (up 11.7 percent) and exports (up 7.1 percent) notably higher than over the same period last year.

The most important trading partners outside of the EU were the U.S., Switzerland, China, Russia, and Japan, according to the report.

The developments in the first three quarters of the year also saw Austria's trade deficit increase to 3.99 billion euros (4.7 billion U.S. dollars), up from 2.95 billion euros (3.5 billion U.S. dollars) over the same months in 2016. Enditem