The French trade deficit reached 7.3 billion euros in September

In September, France's trade deficit reached 7.3 billion euros, after a deterioration of 1.3 billion euros. Customs indicated this on Friday, attributing this development to a “sharp increase” in imports, only partly offset by the increase in exports.

In September, purchases abroad reached 62.7 billion euros, an increase of 2.4 billion, driven by the rise in prices of energy supplies, mainly refined petroleum products. Foreign sales stood at 55.3 billion euros after gaining 1 billion euros, notably thanks to aeronautical deliveries to the Near East and the Middle East.

By geographical area, customs underline that the trade balance deteriorated with Asia (-0.7 billion euros), especially China, due to an increase in supplies of computer equipment, as well as with America (-0.5 billion euros) due to an increase in imports of natural hydrocarbons from the United States. The balance also deteriorated with the countries of the European Union (-0.5 billion euros) and Europe outside the EU (-0.4 billion), while it improved with the Near and Middle East (+0.6 billion euros) and Africa (+0.4 billion).

In September, the cumulative trade deficit over twelve months reached 64.4 billion euros.

On Friday, the Banque de France indicated that the current account deficit, including the balances of goods, services and income, stood at 2.7 billion euros. It represents almost twice the level observed in August, at 1.4 billion euros, under the effect of the worsening deficit in trade in goods. This increased by 1.1 billion euros to reach 6.2 billion, due to "both an increase in the deficit for goods excluding energy (-2.0 billion euros in September after -1.5 billion in August) and an increase in the energy bill (-4.2 billion euros in September after -3.6 billion in August)". For its part, the surplus on trade in services remained at 4.9 billion euros. Over twelve cumulative months, the current account deficit reached 13.7 billion euros, after -15.8 billion a year earlier.

Machine-translated from French