Exports remain buoyant and exceed 354.7 billion euros up to November 2023, the second best figure in the last decade

Imports stand at 391.899 billion euros. Accordingly, the trade deficit for the first eleven months of the year reduced by 42% and fell to 37.158 billion euros (against a deficit of 63.603 billion euros in the same period of 2022).

Compared to pre-pandemic levels (2019), exports in the year to November are up 32.6% and imports by 31.8%.

These figures are given in the latest Foreign Trade Report of the State Secretariat for Trade with customs-declared trade data. With this data, the coverage rate - the ratio of exports to imports - stood at 90.5% (84.9% in January-November 2022, provisional data).

In a context of international uncertainty and slower growth in our main trading partners, the evolution of the foreign goods sector has been more favourable than that of the main European economies as a whole, which shows the competitiveness of Spanish companies, with a strong position in international markets. Foreign trade has therefore remained one of the main catalysts of economic growth in Spain in recent years.

The YTD ex-energy trade balance reduced to 6.412 billion euros (a deficit of 15.39 billion euros up to November 2022), and the energy deficit also fell to 30.746 billion euros (deficit of 48.211 billion euros for the same period in 2022).

The sectors that contributed the most to the annual rate of change of exports from January to November 2023 came from the automotive industry (contribution of 2.7 points), capital goods (contribution of 2.1 points), food, drink and tobacco (contribution of 0.8 points).

Exports to the European Union accounted for 62.7% of the total, while 37.3% of exports went to third destinations. Of particular note are the increases in Spanish exports to Latin America (11.2%), Oceania (8.7%) and the rest of Europe (5.7%) in the first eleven months of the year.

Foreign trade developments in November 2023

In November 2023, Spanish exports of goods reached 34.878 billion euros, 4.2% more than the previous month. Imports reached 37.304 billion euros, 0.8% more than in October.

Year-on-year, imports decreased 8.3% and exports decreased 6.7%, mainly due to the decrease in exports of vaccines for COVID-19.

In November 2022, due to health circumstances, an unusually high number of COVID-19 vaccines were exported. Excluding this factor, Spanish exports would have grown by 2% year-on-year in November.

As a result, a deficit of 2.426 billion euros was recorded in November 2023, compared to a deficit 3.313 billion euros the same month of 2022. The non-energy balance showed a surplus of 137 million euros.

Among the export sectors, the contributions of capital goods (especially transport equipment) and cars stood out positively in November.

Non official translation