Brussels, 22/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - According to the first estimates by Eurostat 2001 published on Tuesday, the euro zone recorded an external trade surplus of EUR 5.5 billion during last November, as opposed to a deficit of EUR 0.2 billion in November 2000. The surplus recorded in the month of October 2001 was EUR 9.6 billion (in October 2000, the surplus was EUR 1.9 billion). Euro zone trade trade notched up a surplus of 38.4 billion taking into account the eleven first months of the year 2001, as compared to EUR 8.0 billion in 2000. For the whole of the EU countries (EU15), external trade in November last stood at a deficit of EUR 0.6 billion (as opposed to a deficit of EUR 7.6 billion in November 2000). During the month of October 2001, there was a revised EU surplus of 2.1 billion, against a 7.0 billion deficit in October 2000. There was a deficit estimated at 49.3 billion in the first eleven months of 2001 compared with -83.3 billion in 2000.
During the first ten months of the year 2001, the energy deficit continued to increase (-100 billion) while the surplus for machines and vehicles almost doubled (+68.2 billion). EU15 trade increased with all its main partners except for imports from Japan (down 9%) and Switzerland (stable) and exports towards Turkey, which fell 30%. The largest rises concerned exports towards Russia (+42%), China (+23%) and the Czech Republic (+17%), as well as imports from the Czech Republic (+18%), Turkey (+17%) and Poland (+15%).