BRATISLAVA, July 8, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovakia’s foreign trade again produced a surplus in May. According to preliminary data from the Statistics Office, exports exceeded imports by 196.4 million euros. Following an update of the trade result in April from a surplus to a deficit of 32.1 million euros, as well as surpluses from previous months, the five months cumulative foreign trade surplus amounts to 619.1 million euros. Year-on-year, this represents an improvement of the cumulative result by 94.1 million euros.
In May, the growth rate of exports accelerated. In annual terms exports in May grew by 20.7 percent while it April it was 12.9 percent. The volume of exports in May was 4.848 billion euros. On the other hand, the growth rate of imports slowed down slightly compared with April. Imports grew year-on-year by 18.9 percent in April while in May it was 17.8 percent and the volume of imports was 4.652 billion euros. For five months of this year compared with the same period last year, export of goods increased by 21.5 percent to 22.567 billion euros and import by 21.6 percent to 21.948 billion euros.
The trade surplus of the Slovak Republic for the whole of last year was 137.5 million euros. Slovakia achieved an even higher surplus following previous years of reported deficits in the crisis of 2009, when the surplus amounted to 946.1 million euros. This was in particular the result of weakening economic activity, which resulted in decreased need for imports of components for Slovak production companies.
SITA
