LISBON: Portuguese exports rose by 0.7% against a 0.3% increase in imports in the three-month period through to January of this year, the INE – the National Institute of Statistics.
The statistical bulletin stated the Portuguese trade deficit thus closed this period on €2.478 billion, down €28.9 million year-on-year with the coverage rate up 0.3% to stand at 82.5%. In annualised monthly terms, January 2016 saw exports slide 1.5% due essentially to a fall in trade with non-EU countries as trade within the single market continued to expand.
In the same monthly terms, imports fell back 1% due to a dip in non-EU imports arising from the continuing impact of low crude oil prices. Stripping out the effect of fuels and lubricants, January saw exports down 0.4% whilst imports rose an annualised 5.6%.
However, the service sector continued to experience difficult conditions with turnover down 2.2% year-on-year in January even while an improvement on the 2.9% decrease registered in December the statistics bulletin detailed.
In particular, the wholesale and vehicle repair sectors continued to drag services down, recording January shrinkage of 3.1% against the December figure of 3.4%. In month-on-month terms, nevertheless, service sector turnover put on an advance of 2.4% in January coming back off a fall of 0.3% in December 2015.
Additionally, service sector employment continued well into the black with January’s 1.2% rise managing to build on the 1% increase at the end of 2015. Indeed, the indices for employment, gross remuneration and hours works, adjusted for the effects of calendar, recorded annualised rises of 1.2%, 1% and 0.5% respectively.
