Airbus pushes France into record trade deficit

PARIS: Fance slipped into its biggest monthly trade deficit ever because of weak foreign sales by aircraft maker Airbus, a cornerstone of the country’s exports, customs said.

Exports fell 7.7 per cent in January from December and imports rose by 2.9 per cent, resulting in a record trade gap of 7.9 billion euros ($8.3 billion), the customs office said in a statement. The figure is a setback for the French government which has been trying to improve its trade balance in the hope of creating jobs at home and rekindling sluggish growth.

It comes after the trade deficit already rose by more than three billion euros in 2016 over the previous year, to 48.1 billion.

The customs officer explained the January fall by “extremely low Airbus sales”. A pullback after traditionally strong end-year deliveries had always been expected, it said, “but the level of group sales is weaker than in previous months of January”. Airbus delivered just 25 aircraft in January, after 111 in December. Imports meanwhile were boosted by France’s rising energy bill because of higher oil prices and unusually high pharmaceutical imports.

Economists warned that France may be relying too much on the aerospace sector, especially Airbus which last month reported nosediving annual profits as charges related to problems with its A400M military cargo transport plane sent earnings into a tailspin. — AFP