Hungary International Trade December 2007

Hungary's trade deficit was 170.2 million euro in December, according to revised figures released by the Central Statistics Office (KSH) on Wednesday. This figure was revised upward from EUR 148.1 m in the preliminary release. The statistics office has also modified data from a number of previous months (largely in the first half of the year), and the result that the final 2007 deficit is EUR 136 m less than the preliminary data. Along the revision imports came in EUR 8.8 m lower and exports EUR 13.3 m higher than first reading data.

The full-year trade deficit was EUR 307.6 m, while the preliminary balance showed EUR -443.5 m. This was a significant improvement on the 2006 deficit of EUR 2,379.1 m.


The EUR 170.2 m December deficit compares with a deficit of EUR 127.9 m in the same month of 2006. Follwing the revision there are now six months in 2007 where there was a goods trade surplus. Before this year Hungary had not produce trade surplus in a single month since 1999.



Exports grew by EUR 5,223.6 m or 6.4% year on year in December (revised down from a preliminary estimate of 6.7%) which compared with a 8.1% expansion in Nov and +15.9% in Dec 06.

Imports were up 7.1% or EUR 5,394 m (revised down from a preliminary estimate of6.9%), which compared with a 5.5% increase in Nov and +15.3% yr/yr in Dec 06. The gap between export and import growth was -0.7 ppt, revised from the preliminarry -0.2 ppt.

Exports in 2007 expanded by 16.2% to EUR 68,461 m and imports reached EUR 68,769 m, up 12.2% from 2006.