Statistics: Foreign-trade Balance in February Posted Surplus of €649.4 million

Bratislava, April 9 (TASR) - Slovakia's foreign-trade balance in February 2024 recorded a surplus of €649.4 million, an increase of €424 million year-on-year, the Statistics Office has reported. Slovakia, according to preliminary results, exported goods worth €8.8 billion, a drop of 3.4 percent when compared to February 2023. This was the most pronounced decline in exports in the past 2.5 years. Meanwhile, the value of imports shrank by 8.3 percent to reach €8.1 billion, with notable drops in this area continuing for the fourth consecutive month. The decrease in February was mainly influenced by a reduced value of imported energy commodities. The most-frequently traded articles in February 2024 were cars and machinery, accounting for 61.3 percent of total exports and 48.4 percent of total imports. As much as 79.2 percent of total exports headed to other EU countries, while imports from these countries accounted for 66.5 percent. Exports to the rest of the Union dropped by 1.3 percent y-o-y, with imports decreasing by 5.7 percent. Exports outside the EU shrank by 10.7 percent, while imports from third countries fell by 13 percent. In the first two months of this year, meanwhile, exports fell by 1.6 percent year-on-year to €17.3 billion, with imports dropping by 8.7 percent to €16.1 billion. The foreign-trade balance for January-February 2024 recorded a surplus of €1.2 billion. In the same period of last year, it posted a deficit of €59.7 million. zel/df