France’s Trade Deficit Narrowed 22% in 2009 on Global Recovery
France’s trade deficit narrowed 22 percent last year on lower energy costs and as companies such as Airbus SAS boosted exports after the worst recession since World War II.
The trade gap fell to 43 billion euros ($58.9 billion) from 55.1 billion euros in 2008, the customs department in Paris said today in an e-mailed report. December’s deficit was 4.27 billion euros compared with 5.3 billion euros the previous month.
France’s performance “is due to our specialization in sectors that were less affected by the crisis: pharmaceuticals, airplanes and agriculture,” Trade Minister Anne-Marie Idrac told a Paris press conference today. The decline in the trade gap was also due to a “smaller energy deficit,” she said.
France and neighboring Germany have benefited since the second quarter of last year as global demand for their goods helped fuel the recovery. The French economy expanded 0.3 percent in the last two quarters of 2009 and will grow 1.4 percent this year, the government forecast last month.
The euro-region “recovery will be to a large extent export-led,” said Stephane Deo, an economist at UBS Securities in London. “Trade will indeed support growth this year.”
Exports of Airbus aircraft last year rose 2 percent from 2008 to reach “their highest level” for a total of 16 billion euros, today’s report showed.
Overall, French exports were little changed in December after growing 5 percent in November, according to the report.
“In 2010, French exports should benefit from a rebound in economic activity as well as from structural reforms this government has carried out,” such as cutting some business taxes and providing tax credits for research, Idrac said.