LISBON: Portugal’s global trade deficit rose sharply in the three months that ended in February as exports to markets outside Europe slumped and imports rose, the National Statistics Institute said on Friday. The trade deficit rose 15 percent from the same period a year earlier, to 2.524 billion euros. The deficit figure provided by the INE is for goods only.
Exports outside of the European Union slumped 14.5 percent and imports from non-EU countries dropped 4.1 percent. Traditional Portuguese export markets outside Europe, such as Angola, have seen sharp economic slowdowns recently.
But exports to European Union countries, Portugal’s main market, rose by 3.9 percent while imports from those countries rose 3 percent. Helped by growing exports and domestic consumption, Portugal’s economic growth accelerated to 1.5 percent last year from 0.9 percent in 2014, which was its first year of expansion after a long recession and debt crisis.
