Foreign trade with non-EU countries

Starting from February 2020 data, with the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, Istat starts dissemination of Italy’s foreign trade data with non-EU27 countries, in line with Eurostat dissemination policy. Time series for the non-EU27 area have been reconstructed to make the comparisons consistent.

Data on Italy’s foreign trade with non-EU27 countries in February 2020 are preliminary. The results of the survey on total foreign trade in February 2020 will be disseminated on coming 17 April 2020.

In February 2020 exports to non-EU27 countries increased by 6.4% and imports decreased by 3.6% compared with the same month of the previous year.

The trade balance showed a surplus of 5,096 million euro compared with a 3,420 million euro surplus in the same month of 2019.

In February 2020, in seasonally adjusted terms, exports increased by 0.6% and imports decreased by 6.6% compared with January 2020. Over the last three months, seasonally adjusted data showed a 0.3% increase in outgoing flows and a 0.9% decrease in incoming flows in comparison with the previous three months.

In February 2020 excluding energy, the trade balance showed a surplus of 7,733 million euro compared to the surplus of 6,484 million euro of February 2019.

For the former non-EU28 area, which does not include the United Kingdom, in February 2020, exports increased by 7.8% and imports decreased by 3.7% compared with the same month of the previous year. In seasonnally adjusted terms, exports rose by 0.8% and import declined by 7.2% compared with January 2020. The trade balance showed a surplus of 3,909 million euro (equal to 2,156 million in February 2019).