Italy’s foreign trade up in August
(ANSA) – Rome, October 16 – Italy’s foreign trade showed signs of a rebound in figures released Tuesday by the statistics agency Istat.
Exports from recession-hit Italy grew 1.7% in August with respect to July, while imports increased by 1.1%.
Foreign trade was still down compared to a year earlier, as Italy struggles to emerge from its longest recession in over two decades.
Exports in August slipped 4.4% compared to the same month in 2012, while imports tanked 9.8%.
Italy’s trade surplus, boosted by a long-withering domestic market, reached 19.2 billion euros for the first eight months of 2013. Removing energy imports from the equation would more than double the trade surplus to 56 billion euros, Istat said.