Economic Movements: No Excuse for Record Trade Deficit

Ljubljana, 20 February - ECONOMY/ANALYSIS/EIPF
The end of 1999 was marked by a favourable growth of imports and exports, while the mid-year comparisons were spoilt by the growth of the U.S. dollar, explains the January edition of Economic Movements (Gospodarska Gibanja) published by the Law Faculty's Economic institute. It adds that this is not the reason for the record US$ 1.409 billion trade deficit, which even outsized the expectation of the worst pessimists. The institute also analysed the volume of January trade, when Slovenia exported US$ 635 million and imported US$ 707 million. That means that exports decreased by seven percent in comparison to last year, while imports dropped by 0.7 percent. The trade deficit for this year thus stands, at the end of January, at US$ 72 or 1.5 times more than last year.