News

Exports from the Basque Country reported a nominal fall of 11.1% in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to EUSTAT data. Sales abroad totalled 3,963.7 million euro over the last three months of 2009, compared to 4,458.4 million in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Total imports, which came to 3,263.4 million euro, posted a year-on-year drop of 18.3%, even though non-energy product imports fell at a slightly higher rate of 21.7%.

The trade balance (exports minus imports) showed a positive evolution, due to the greater downturn in the number of imports compared to exports, and rose from a deficit of 462.9 million euro to a surplus of 700.3 million euro of this year, with a coverage rate of exports over imports of 121.5%.
However, the non-energy trade balance showed a surplus of 1,346.7 million euro in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 4.1% on the same period of the previous year, with the coverage rate rising from 145% in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 159.9% in the same quarter of 2009.

Exports to the European Union fell by 18.1% and the only main destination not to record a decrease was the United Kingdom, with exports to that country up 26.7%. The greatest falls were in exports to Germany (-29.1%), Belgium (-27.8%), Italy (-21.4%) or France (-15.4%). However, even though the figure for France was not as low, it had a great impact on our exports. Among the other areas with a significant volume, the growth in sales to the Newly Industrialised Asian Countries (NIAC), a group where sales are up over twelvefold, and the drop in exports to the United States, down 28.9%, are particularly noteworthy.

Imports coming from the European Union also experienced a considerable decrease (12.4%), with notable drops in the number of imports coming from Germany (-26.6%) and Italy (-21.6%), among others, while imports from Belgium were up by 67.9%.

The trade surplus with the European Union shrunk and fell from the 759.2 million euro last year to the 508.1 million of the last quarter of 2009. The coverage rate was therefore down by 8.8 percentage points.

Exports in the fourth quarter of 2009 performed negatively, mainly in the case two duty groups: Metals and Manufactured (-31.7%) and Electrical Equipment (-23.3%), where exports in both cases were down by over 650 million compared to same period of the previous year. In terms of the other main duty sections, special mention should be made of the growth recorded by Transport Material, up 24.7%. This growth was due to a ship being exported to Singapore.

As far as imports were concerned, the majority of the sections posted downturns, particularly Metals and Manufactured (-26.7%) and Transport Material (-52.1%).

Alava and Gipuzkoa posted significant decreases in its exports in the fourth quarter of 2009, with year-on-year rates of -20.0% and -21.1%, respectively. However, exports from Bizkaia were up by 4.9% compared to the previous year. The greatest fall in imports was in Álava (-25.3%), followed by Bizkaia (-18.3%) and Gipuzkoa (-12.1%).