Spain’s trade deficit in the first half to June 2016 dropped 31.4% to 7.878 billion euros from a year earlier, driven down by record exports, according to data published on Friday by the Economy Ministry.
Exports grew 2.3% to 128.041 billion euros year-on-year in January to June, marking a record for the series in accumulated terms for the period. It was also the best June on record, with exports up 2.1% year-on-year.
Imports declined 0.5% to 135.919 billion euros in the first half of 2016 from a year ago.
In the first quarter of 2016, Spanish exports grew 0.2% compared to those of the Eurozone and the EU, which contracted 0.5% and 0.9% respectively.
In a recent interview with The Corner, Chris Papageorgiou, Deputy Unit Chief at the International Monetary Fund, flagged that Spain is concentrating more on the quality of its exports, which is allowing it to weather the storm of the global trade slowdown.
Exports now account for 33% of Spanish GDP, 10 percentage points higher than in 2008.
