By Gokhan Ergocun
ANKARA (AA) – The 19 EU member states, which use the euro as their common currency, exported goods worth €1.12 trillion ($1.21 trillion) in the first half of 2018, up 3.1 percent over the same period from a year earlier, Eurostat announced Thursday.
Imports of goods in the euro area, or eurozone, in H1 rose 3.8 percent reach to €1.02 billion ($1.1 trillion), Eurostat said.
The area's international goods trade surplus stood at €100.7 billion (nearly $109 billion) during the January-June period.
H1 trade within the euro area totaled some €980.6 billion ($1.06 trillion), a 5.5 percent rise year-on-year.
Moving to all 28 EU members, in the same period exports and imports of EU28 goods rose 2.5 and 2.8 percent to reach €956.8 billion ($1.03 trillion) and €960.7 billion ($1.04 billion), respectively.
The EU28's goods trade deficit was €3.9 billion ($4.2 billion) during the first six months of 2018.
The trade of goods among the 28 EU member states reached €1.76 trillion ($1.9 trillion), up 5 percent in H1 year-on-year.
Germany was the top exporter of goods — both in trade within the union and with the rest of the world — with €664.8 billion ($718 billion), followed by the Netherlands with €297.9 billion ($321.7 billion) and France with €244.8 billion ($264.4 billion).
The U.S., China, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Norway, Japan, South Korea, India and Canada were the EU28’s top trade partners in H1.
Turkey's exports to the EU28 rose 6.7 percent to reach €38 billion ($41 billion) and its imports from the EU28 were €44.3 billion ($47.8 billion), up 7.8 percent year-on-year in H1.
– June data
In June, exports of goods from the EA19 and the EU28 rose 5.7 percent and 8.2 percent year-on-year to reach €198.6 billion ($232.4 billion) and €171.5 billion ($200.6 billion), respectively.
The goods trade surplus in the EA19 and the EU28 were €22.5 billion ($26.3 billion) and €6.9 billion ($8.07 billion), respectively.
Intra-EA19 and intra-EU28's goods trade rose by 7.1 percent and 5.4 percent year-on-year to reach €170.7 billion ($199.7 billion) and €304.8 billion ($356.6 billion), respectively, in H1.
