Romania's trade balance deficit widens to 5 billion euros, Jan.-May 2018

The trade balance deficit went up 12.3 percent in the first five months of 2018 as against the similar period of 2017, to over 5 billion euro, a release of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday informs.

"Between 1 January - 31 May 2018, FOB exports accounted for 28.093 billion euro, while CIF imports accounted for 33.093 billion euro. Between 1 January - 31 May 2018, the exports increased by 8.8 percent and the imports by 9.3 percent compared to the period between 1 January - 31 May 2017. Romania's FOB/CIF trade balance deficit between 1 January - 31 May 20118 stood at 5.000 billion euro, higher by 546.8 million euro than the one recorded between 1 January - 31 May 2017," reads the release.

In May 2018, FOB exports accounted for 5.871 billion euro, while CIF imports stood at 7.142 billion euro, thus resulting a deficit of 1.27 billion euro. Compared to the same month of 2017, in May 2018 the exports increased by 5.2 percent, while the imports by 6.8 percent.

Between 1 January - 31 May 2018, the product groups with a significant share of the country's trade were machines and transport equipment (48.6 percent for exports and 37.4 percent for imports) and other manufactured products (32.4 percent for exports and 30.8 percent for imports).

The value of intra-Community exchanges of goods (intra-EU28) between 1 January - 31 May 2018 stood at 21.554 billion euro in exports and 24.905 billion euro in imports, representing 76.7 percent of the total exports and 75.3 percent of the total imports.

Moreover, the value of extra-community exchanges of goods (Extra-EU28) between 1 January - 31 May 2018 stood at 6.538 billion euro in exports and 8.187 billion euro in imports, representing 23.3 percent of the total exports and 24.7 percent of the total imports. AGERPRES (RO - author: George Banciulea, editor: Nicoleta Gherasi; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Adina Panaitescu)