MADRID, May 29. (EUROPEAN PRESS) –

Italy’s trade balance with countries that are not part of the European Union posted a surplus in April compared to the previous year’s negative result thanks to a fall in imports that was bigger than a drop in exports.

In figures released this Monday by the Italian National Statistical Institute (Istat), last month’s surplus amounted to 1,216 million euros compared to the 1,160 million euro deficit recorded twelve months earlier. However, this positive balance was much lower than in March, when it arrived, the positive difference was recorded at around 8,500 million euros.

In this way, the third largest economy in the EU sold goods and services to non-EU countries with a gross value of 22,425 million euros, while importing it amounted to 21,209 million euros, 5.1% and 19.5% less, respectively. .

Regarding trading partners, exports to the UK (-15.1% year-on-year), OPEC (-8.1%), ASEAN (-6.3%) and China (-2.4%) contracted. %), but increased towards Turkey (+8.5%), Japan (+6.7%) and the United States (+6.6%).

After two years of growth, transalpine exports fell for the first time, with general declines in consumer goods (-10.9%), intermediate goods (-9.8%) and energy products (-38.5%). Conversely, capital goods rose 10.7%.

In contrast, imports of consumer, intermediate and energy also fell by 6.8%, 12.9% and 37.3% respectively, while imports of capital goods increased by 3.8%. The energy deficit is 5.838 million euros.