Link Securities | According to data released by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, in January Spain’s trade deficit increased to €6.19 billion, compared to €3.73 billion in the same month last year, reaching its highest level since October 2022. In January, exports fell by 1.2%, to €29.78 billion, weighed down by sharp contractions in the automotive sector (21.2%), energy products (15.0%) and capital goods (5.7%). Among the main trading partners, exports decreased to France (14.1%), Italy (2.5%), Germany (0.6%), Morocco (1.3%) and Mexico (20.1%).
Imports, meanwhile, rose in January by 6.2%, to €35.97 billion, driven by increased purchases of chemical products (16.6%), consumer goods (21.6%) and food, beverages and tobacco (7.5%). It is worth noting that imports increased from China (22.5%), Turkey (17.7%), the United Kingdom (9.5%), the USA (24.9%), Morocco (6.9%), Brazil (13.1%) and Mexico (12.1%).
On the other hand, Eurostat published yesterday that, according to its first estimate of the data, the Eurozone generated a surplus of €1 billion in January in the trade of goods with the rest of the world, a figure much lower than the €10.600 million reached in January 2024 and the €9.1 billion expected by the consensus of FactSet analysts. In January, exports of goods from the Eurozone to the rest of the world amounted to €232.6 billion, which represents an increase of 3.0% compared to January 2024.
Imports from the rest of the world, meanwhile, rose to €231.5 billion in January, an increase of 7.6% compared to January 2024.
In January, the Eurozone surplus decreased compared to December 2024, going from €15.4 billion to the €1 billion already mentioned. When analysing the evolution of the balance by product, two groups of products drove the decrease with a negative variation: machinery and vehicles experienced the biggest drop, falling from €16.5 billion in December 2024 to €7.4 billion in January 2025, and other manufactured goods went from a surplus of €1.2 billion to a deficit of €4.6 billion during the same period.
For the whole of 2024, the Eurozone recorded a surplus of €173.8 billion, compared to €57.4 billion in 2023. Exports of goods from the Eurozone to the rest of the world amounted to €2,863.1 billion, an increase of 0.5% compared to 2023, and imports fell to €2,689.2 billion (a decrease of 3.6% compared to 2023).
For its part, the volume of trade within the Eurozone fell to €2,567,200 million in 2024, 2.9% less than the previous year.
