The European Union's foreign trade deficit widened to 172.6 billion euros (224.4 U.S. dollars) in 2006, half more than the previous year, the European Union's statistics bureau Eurostat said on Friday.

According to an estimate released by Eurostat, exports by the 25 EU nations to the outside market increased by ten percent to 1072 billion euros last year, while imports into the bloc jumped to 1183.8 billion euros, a rise of 14 percent.

For the single month of last December, the EU recorded a deficit of 7.3 billion euros, lower than the 9.6 billion deficit registered a year ago.

Non-seasonally adjusted figures showed that the deficit in energy sector grew strongly during the first eleven months of 2006, rising to 259.7 billion euros from 202.3 billion euros in the same period of 2005. But the huge deficit was offset to a certain extent by increasing surplus in the chemicals sector, from 64.9 billion euros to 72.4 billion euros, and for machinery and vehicles, from 91.2 billion euros to 103.4 billion euros.

From January to November last year, trade between the EU and its major partners expanded fast. Both exports and imports with Russia, the EU's main energy supplier, experienced the largest increase by 27 percent year on year. Deficit with Russia also increased from 48 billion euros to 61.2 billion euros.

For the 12-nation euro zone, foreign trade recorded a deficit of 8.2 billion euros in 2006 after a surplus of 16.2 billion euros in 2005, the Eurostat said.

Source: Xinhua