Spanish exports grew 3.3% up to July to 230 billion euros

On the other hand, imports fell 3.7% to 251.720 billion euros, as shown in July's Monthly Foreign Trade Report of the State Secretariat for Trade from Custom's declared trade data.

As a result, the trade deficit for the first seven months of the year reached 21.323 billion euros (deficit of 38.524 billion euros in the same period of 2022).

The acting Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Héctor Gómez said: "International trade is a tool for global progress, and this government is committed to strengthening multilateralism, calling for a trade policy that is open to our main European and transnational partners. Safeguarding free trade and intensifying trade cooperation are two of the priorities of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU, and we had the opportunity to defend this in the European Parliament this week.

The coverage rate - the ratio of exports to imports - increased to 91.5% (85.3% in January-July 2022, provisional data).

"Spain offers legal certainty and great investment opportunities in an environment of economic growth and contained inflation that favours the creation of wealth," said Gómez.

The non-energy deficit fell to 1,999 billion euros (deficit of 7.478 billion euros accumulated up to July 2022); and the energy deficit fell to 19.324 billion euros (deficit of 31.045 billion euros in the same period of 2022).

The year-on-year growth of Spanish exports between January and July (3.3%) was higher than that recorded in the EU-27 (1.8%) and the eurozone (1.2%). The figure is also higher than those recorded by Germany (2.7%) and Italy (2.3%). Outside the EU, sales also grew in the UK (6.1%), China (1.5%) and Japan (2.6%), while sales in the US declined (-2.0%).

The main positive contributions to the annual rate of change of exports from January to July 2023 came from the automotive industry (contribution of 3.3 points), capital assets (contribution of 2.3 points), food, drink and tobacco (contribution of 1.1 points) and chemical products (contribution of 0.3 points).

"The automotive, capital goods and food sectors have led Spanish exports in these seven months and recorded year-on-year growth of 29.4%, 13.2% and 6.4% respectively," explained Héctor Gómez, who recalled that "after the pandemic and the logistical effort of vaccinations, 2022 was the year of economic recovery and 2023, as demonstrated by the recent revision of GDP carried out by the INE, was the year of economic growth. Economic growth sustained in large part by this openness to trade and this hunger for investment that makes Spain a safe, robust and attractive country for the foreign sector".

Exports to the EU (63.1% of the total) grew 4.8% YoY in the first seven months of the year. Sales to the eurozone (55.2% of the total) increased 4.0% and sales to the rest of the EU (7.9% of the total) rose 10.3%. Exports to third countries (36.9% of the total) increased 1.0% in this period, with increases in exports to Latin America (19.6%) and Oceania (11.8%).

The regional governments with the highest growth in their exports were Castilla y León, Catalonia and La Rioja.

Data for July 2023

In July, Spanish exports of goods fell 5% YoY to 30.446 billion euros. Imports also fell 8.4% YoY to 35.348 billion euros. Compared with the previous month, with the seasonally adjusted series and corrected for the calendar effect, exports fell 1.7%, while imports grew 3.0%.

As a result, in July 2023 the deficit reduced to 4.903 billion euros (deficit of 6.561 billion euros in the same month of 2022).

The coverage rate stood at 86.1%, 3.1 percentage points more than in July 2022 (83.0%).

Non official translation