Euro-zone trade with the rest of the world recorded a surplus of 7.2 billion euros (8.6 billion US dollars) in July this year, estimated Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU), on Tuesday.

The figure was lower than both the surplus of 12.9 billion euros in July of last year, and the surplus of 7.6 billion euros in June 2005.

In July 2005, seasonally adjusted euro-zone exports increased by 0.9 percent and imports increased by 4.0 percent over the previous month.

For all the 25 members of the EU, trade with non-EU countries is estimated to have registered a 3.2-billion-euro deficit last July, against a 1.0-billion-euro surplus in July 2004.

Compared with June of this year, seasonally adjusted EU exports for July increased by 0.1 percent and imports by 2.8 percent, said Eurostat.

In the first six months of 2005, the EU energy deficit grew strongly -- weighing in at 95.4 billion euros compared with 65.3 billion in the same period of 2004 -- while surplus for machinery and vehicles rose over the same period -- totaling 46.1 billion this year compared with 36.6 billion last year.

The EU's trade flows with its major partners grew in the first six months of 2005. The most notable increases were for exports to Russia (24 percent), India (23 percent), Norway (12 percent), South Korea (11 percent) and Switzerland (10 percent).

Imports from Russia (32 percent), China (21 percent), India (20percent), Norway (13 percent) and Turkey (11 percent) grew substantially.

Compared with the same period a year before, EU's trade surplus with the United States and Switzerland grew while its trade deficit increased with China, Russia and Norway.

In the fist six months of 2005, the largest surplus was observed in Germany (83.5 billion euros), followed by the Netherlands (19.0 billion), Ireland (17.0 billion) and Sweden (9.2billion).

Britain registered the largest deficit (47.5 billion), followed by Spain (34.7 billion), Greece (14.7 billion) and France (13.9 billion).

The Euro-zone is made up of Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland. (One euro is equal to about 1.2 US dollars.)

Source: Xinhua