France has just clocked up a record trade deficit for the first six months of this year: 11.193 billion euros. This now adds the French to the eurozone BoP sick room along with Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. Of course oil imports form an important part of the picture, but that doesn’t make the headache any less.
The shortfall in June widened to 1.194 billion euros from 1.148 billion in May. The deficit for the first half of 2004 had been limited to 581 million euros.
The finance ministry said that at prices prevailing at the beginning of August France could face an energy sector deficit of more than 40 billion euros this year after 29 billion in 2004.
“The increased impact of the energy component has accounted for nearly half the deterioration in the overall trade balance for France” in the past year, the ministry said, citing rising oil prices.
Alexandre Bourgeois, an economist at Natexis Banques Populaires, said the trade deficit of the last 12 months — 20.6 billion euros — was the highest in French history.