Press release dated 04/03/2011

FOREIGN TRADE OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY (ECOMEX) 4th QUARTER 2010

Exports from the Basque Country were up by 17.3% in the fourth quarter of 2010

There was a trade surplus of nearly 2,289 million euro in 2010 with a coverage rate of 115%

Exports from the Basque Country reported a nominal rise of 17.3% in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to EUSTAT data. Sales abroad totalled 4,648.9 million euro over the last three months of 2010, compared to 3,963.7 million in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Total imports to the Basque Country, which came to 4,061.2 million euros, recorded year-on-year growth of 24.4%, even though non-energy product imports grew at a slightly lower rate (6.8%).

The trade balance (exports minus imports) was positive, due to the greater weight of exports over imports. However, it has fallen from a positive balance of 700.3 million euro a year ago to a surplus of 587.7 this year, with an export coverage rate compared to imports of 114.5%.

The non-energy trade balance posted a surplus of 1,567.8 million compared to 1,346.7 for the previous year and the coverage rates were practically the same: 159.9% in 2009 and 159.6% in 2010.



Exports to the European Union increased by 29.3%, which was 12 percentage points higher than the overall increase. The most positive figures were for sales to Belgium (49.1%), Germany (42.7%), Italy (37.0%) and France (26.7%). Among the other areas with a significant volume, the growth in sales to Latin America (30.9%) and the United States (25.5%) were particularly noteworthy.

Imports from the European Union also posted a slight increase of 6.5%, with notable growth in the imports coming from the United Kingdom (17.1%), France (16.5%) and Germany (8.7%), among others, while imports from Italy fell by 3.5%.

The trade surplus with the European Union increased and rose from the 508.1 million euro for the previous year to the 1.061.4 million of the last quarter of 2010. The coverage rate therefore rose by 27.5 percentage points.

Exports in the fourth quarter of 2010 performed positive, mainly due to two customs duty groups: Metals and Manufactured (41.7%) and Electrical Equipment (14.0%), where registered exports in both cases were up by over 493.9 million on the same period of the previous year. The other main customs duty groups also registered strong growth. The Plastics and Rubber (67.7%), Chemical Products (47.1%) and Mineral Products (23.3%) categories taken as a whole increased their exports by 277.3 million with respect to the fourth quarter of 2009. There was increases posted by nearly all the custom duty groups, except for Transport Equipment (-15.1%), among the important categories.



As far as imports were concerned, the majority of the duty groups posted increases, with the best performances registered by Mineral Products (41.4%) and Metals and Manufactured (24.1%), which jointly registered an increase of 591.8 million compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year. Imports of Electrical Equipment (8.9%) grew to a lesser extent and Transport Equipment fell by 8.5%.

The three provinces posted significant increases in their exports during the fourth quarter of 2010, with Álava posting year-on-year rates of 23.6%, Gipuzkoa 16.8% and Bizkaia 14.2%. The imports by provinces also registered positive balances in all three provinces, with the order of importance being inverse to the export rates, as the highest balances was in Bizkaia with 32.2%, followed by Gipuzkoa (14.5%) and Álava (10.4%).

Annual Balance for 2010

Exports from the Basque Country totalled 17,545.9 million euro in 2010, up 20.1% on the previous year. Total imports for the same period also posted a significant increase and were up 24.3%. As the result of both flows, the coverage rate of exports over imports was, however, down by nearly 4 points, from 119% in 2009 to 115% in 2010. This generated a surplus of 2288.7 million euro for 2010, which was nearly 40 million euros down on the previous year.

The balance of non-energy products improved on the previous year, standing at 6,078.5 million euro compared to the 5,289.1 million of 2009. However, the coverage rate of non-energy products fell by 4.3 points, and dropped from 165.4% in 2009 to 161.1% in 2010.

Imports and exports in the Basque Country posted higher increases than for Spain as a whole. Therefore, while exports were up by 17.4% in Spain, they increased by 20.1% in the Basque Country. Something similar happened with imports, as they rose by 14.2% in the rest of Spain and by 24.3% in our Autonomous Community.

In terms of customs duty groups, the greatest upturns in exports in 2010 were by Metals and Manufactured (31.7%) and Transport Equipment (23.1%), two customs duty groups that accounted for 50% of our exports. The majority of the other duty groups also post significant increases and special mention should be made of Plastics and Rubber (30.7%) and Mineral Products (23.0%) due to their weight and importance.

For 2010 as a whole, the largest growth in exports was in Bizkaia, with 29.2% annual growth, followed by exports from Álava (20.7%) and Gipuzkoa which posted a year-on-year increase of 9.2%. As far as imports were concerned, the three provinces posted significant growth, with the greatest being recorded in Bizkaia (27.8%), followed by Gipuzkoa (19.1%) and finally Álava, which registered the smallest growth (17.4%).



For further information:

Basque Statistics Office C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Tel:+34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.es Contact: Patxi Garrido Tel:+34-945-01 75 13 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 Further press releases on Foreign Trade Statistics of the Basque Country Database on Foreign Trade Statistics of the Basque Country