Foreign trade with non-EU countries

Istat presents preliminary data on Italy’s foreign trade with non-EU countries in December 2018. The results of the survey on total foreign trade in December 2018 will be disseminated on coming 15 February 2019.

In December 2018 exports to non-EU countries decreased by 5.0% and imports increased by 8.1% compared with the same month of the previous year.

The trade balance showed a surplus of 4,280 million euro compared with a 6,161 million euro surplus in the same month of 2017.

In December 2018, in seasonally-adjusted terms, exports decreased by 5.6% and imports decreased by 2.2% compared with November 2018. Over the last three months, seasonally-adjusted data showed a 2.8% increased in outgoing flows and a 0.7% increased in incoming flows in comparison with the previous three months.

In the period January-December 2018 exports to non-EU countries increased by 1.7% and imports increased by 8.6% compared with the same period of 2017.

The trade balance registered a surplus of 28,544 million euro compared to the surplus of 38,919 million euro in the same period of 2017. Excluding energy, the trade balance presented a surplus of 69,303 million euro (Table 2) compared with a 71,760 million euro surplus in January-December 2017.