Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Export

All EU countries' export volumes have decreased, with the biggest falls recorded in Finland – 36%, Lithuania – 32%, Sweden – 30% and Bulgaria – 30%. Estonia's exports fell as much as Latvia's, 27%, reports LETA.

Although Latvia's exports have decreased slightly less than those of the neighbor countries, the export volume of Latvia is still much smaller than those of Estonia and Lithuania. Latvia's exports totaled EUR 3.3 billion in the first eight months, compared to Estonia's EUR 4.1 billion and Lithuania's EUR 7.4 billion.

The smallest decreases in export volumes were registered in Ireland – 1%, Luxembourg – 13%, Greece – 12% each and Denmark – 18%.

The EU's largest exporters in the first eight months were Germany, Netherlands and France with export volumes of, respectively, EUR 517.5 billion, EUR 228.6 billion and EUR 221 billion.

The EU's imports also decreased sharply in the first eight months, with the biggest decreases reported by Lithuania (43%), Latvia (40%), Bulgaria (36%), Estonia, Finland and Romania (35% each). The smallest decreases were registered in Malta (17%), Germany (19%) and Luxembourg (19%).

As Latvia's imports decreased more than exports, the foreign trade deficit decreased to EUR 1.1 billion, compared to EUR 2.8 billion a year ago.

Germany had the biggest foreign trade surplus of EUR 81.3 billion, followed by Ireland with EUR 25.9 billion and Netherlands with EUR 23.2 billion foreign trade surplus.

The largest foreign trade deficits were registered in Great Britain (EUR 61.3 billion), France (EUR 34.5 billion) and Spain (EUR 31.4 billion).