Foreign trade and import prices

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 EU27 countries and non-EU27 countries, in line with Eurostat dissemination policy. Time series for the EU27 and non-EU27 aggregates have been reconstructed to make the comparisons consistent.

In February 2020 seasonally-adjusted data, compared to January 2020, increased for outgoing flows (+1.1%) and decreased for incoming flows (-3.8%). Exports raised for both EU countries (+1.8%) and non EU countries (+0.3%). Imports fell by -6.9% for non EU countries and by -1.4% for EU countries.

Over the last three months, seasonally-adjusted data, compared to the previous three months, rose for both exports (+0.6%) and imports (+1.1%).

In February 2020, compared with the same month of the previous year, exports grew (+7.0%) while imports decreased (-0.7%). Outgoing flows increased by +8.0% for EU countries and by +5.9% for non EU countries. Incoming flows rose by +1.8% for EU area and fell by -4.0% for non EU area. The trade balance in February 2020 amounted to +6,085 million Euros (5,068 million Euros for non EU area and +1,016 million Euros for EU countries).

In February 2020, import prices decreased by 1.2% on monthly basis (-0.3% for the euro zone, -2.2% for the non-euro zone). Over the last three months, compared to the previous three months, import prices decreased by 0.3% (-0.3% for the euro zone and -0.1% for the non-euro zone).

Import prices decreased by 1.5% in February 2020, compared to the same month a year ago (-0.7% for the euro zone and -2.4% for the non-euro zone).

In March there was a partial reduction in the flow of Intrastat declarations, as consequence of the deferral to 30 June of the transmission deadlines envisaged by the “Cura Italia” Decree. The actions carried out to tackle these disturbances in data collection (see Methodological note, page 11) have made it possible to process and disseminate, according to the usual information detail, intra-EU trade data of February 2020. These will be subject to revision when, once the suspension period of the transmission deadlines has ended, all Intrastat declarations of February will be available.