Spanish exports grew by 3.3% until July and exceed €230,000 million

• The trade deficit fell to EUR 21,323 million in January-July. • Highlights the good performance of exports from the automotive, equipment and food sector.

September 21, 2023.- Spanish merchandise exports increased by 3.3% year-on-year in the period January-July and reached 230,397 million euros, a record high. For its part, imports fell by 3.7% to 251,720 million euros, as shown in the Monthly Report on Foreign Trade of July 2023 of the Secretary of State for Trade with declared trade data from Customs.

As a result, the trade deficit for the first seven months of the year fell to 21,323 million euros (deficit of 38,524 million recorded in the same period of 2022).

For the acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Héctor Gómez: “International trade is a tool for global progress and this government is committed to strengthening multilateralism, calling for a trade policy open to our main European and transnational partners. Safeguarding free trade and intensifying trade cooperation are two of the priorities of the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council, and so we have had the opportunity to defend it before the European Parliament this week.”

The coverage rate – export/import ratio – increased to 91.5% (85.3% in January-July 2022, provisional data).

“Spain offers legal certainty and great investment opportunities in an environment of economic growth and contained inflation that favors the creation of wealth,” Gómez recalled.

The non-energy deficit fell to 1,999 million euros (deficit of 7,478 million euros in the accumulated until July 2022); and the energy deficit fell to 19,324 million euros (deficit of 31,045 million in the same period of 2022).

The year-on-year increase in Spanish exports between January and July (3.3%) was higher than in the EU-27 (1.8%) and the euro zone (1.2%). Also registered in Germany (2.7%) and Italy (2.3%). Outside the EU, sales from the UK (6.1%), China (1.5%) and Japan (2.6%) also grew, while those from the US dropped. US (-2.0%).

The main positive contributions to the annual rate of change of exports from January to July 2023 came from the automotive sector (contribution of 3.3 points), capital goods (contribution of 2.3 points), food, beverages and tobacco (contribution of 1.1 points) and chemicals (contribution of 0.3 points).

“The automotive sector, the equipment sector and the food sector have led Spanish exports in these seven months and registered a year-on-year growth of 29.4%, 13.2% and 6.4% respectively,” explains Héctor Gómez, who recalled that “after the pandemic and the logistical effort of vaccination, 2022 was that of economic reactivation and this 2023, as demonstrated by the recent review of GDP carried out by the INE, that of economic growth. Economic growth sustained in large part by this commercial opening and investment hunger that places Spain as a safe, robust and attractive country for the foreign sector.”

Exports to the European Union (63.1% of the total) increased by 4.8% year-on-year in the first seven months of the year. Sales to the euro zone (55.2% of the total) grew by 4.0% and those destined for the rest of the European Union (7.9% of the total) rose by 10.3%. Exports to third destinations (36.9% of the total) increased by 1.0% in this period, with increases in exports to Latin America (19.6%) and Oceania (11.8%).

The autonomous communities with the highest growth in their exports were Castilla y León, Catalonia and La Rioja.

Data for the month of July 2023

In the month of July, Spanish merchandise exports decreased by 5% year-on-year to 30.446 billion euros. For its part, imports also decreased by 8.4% in year-on-year terms to 35,348 million euros. Compared to the previous month, with the seasonally adjusted series of the calendar effect, exports fell by 1.7%, while imports grew by 3.0%.

As a result, in July 2023 the deficit fell to 4,903 million euros (deficit of 6,561 million in the same month of 2022).

The coverage rate stood at 86.1%, 3.1 percentage points higher than in July 2022 (83.0%).

The full report and the methodological note can be consulted in this web address within the Trade Portal: https://comercio.gob.es/ImportacionExportacion/Informes_Estadisticas/ Pages/Informes-periodicos.aspx