Foreign trade

Istat presents data on Italy’s foreign trade as well as unit value and volume indices (base year 2005=100) referring to September 2012. The results of the flash estimates on extra-EU trade for September 2012 were disseminated on October 23^th.

• Compared to the previous month, export in September decreased by 2.0% reflecting sales drop for both European (-2,1%) and non-European (-2.0%) markets. The decline in imports (-4.2%) is due to the reduction in purchases by European countries (-4.4%) and non-European countries (-3.9%). In the quarter (July-September 2012), exports growth (+1.6%) is mainly due to an increase in sales to EU (+2.3%). The increase in import (+0.3%) is the due to an increase of purchases of goods from EU (+0.6%).

• In September 2012, compared with the same month of the previous year, export decreased by 4.2% and affects EU markets (-7.6%). The decrease of imports (-10.6%) was due to reduced purchases for both EU countries (-13.0%) and extra-UE countries (-7.6%). In September, trade balance amounted to +408 million euros: +1.2 billion for EU countries and -594 millions for non-EU countries. Net of energy products, the balance was 5.4 billion euros (Table 2).