Slovak foreign trade recorded a deficit also in January 2023, even though the deficit was no longer growing in terms of year-on-year comparison, according to UniCredit Bank analyst Ľubomír Koršňák. "The slight improvement in overall balance in January is owed to growing exports as well as to the expected correction in imports, which used to be artificially inflated at the end of 2022 by the technical gas imports," explained Koršňák.
The foreign trade balance is likely to see a more stable improvement once bottlenecks in the automobile industry are removed. "But the return of foreign trade to surpluses will still be hindered also by soaring prices of energy commodities, due to stay above pre-Ukrainian war levels long-term, as they make nominal imports more expensive," thinks Koršňák.
Earlier in the day, the Statistics Office reported that Slovakia's imports in December 2022 outstripped exports by the most significant margin in twelve months, with the cumulative foreign trade balance for the whole of 2022 negative to the tune of €4.31 billion.
Total exports of goods in December 2022 decreased by 0.3 percent year-on-year to €7.6 billion. Total imports increased by 13 percent to €8.86 billion. This produced a foreign trade deficit of €1.26 billion, which was €1.04 billion higher than in December 2021.
Source: TASR
