The eurozone had a slightly higher than expected trade surplus in October, non-adjusted data showed on Friday, but the bloc's performance was substantially weaker than a year ago. European Union statistics office Eurostat said the surplus for the 17 countries using the euro was 1.1 billion euros in October, against 3.1 billion in October 2010, with exports up 6 percent and imports rising 7 percent year-on-year.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a trade surplus of 1.0 billion euros. Adjusted for seasonal swings, the eurozone trade balance in October was a surplus of 0.3 billion euros, down from a 2.2 billion euro surplus in September. In the January-October period, the non-adjusted eurozone trade gap widened to 18.8 billion euros from 10.9 billion euros in the same period of 2010, as exports grew 13 percent and imports rose 14 percent.
For the 27-nation European Union, the trade deficit with China for the January to September period fell to 118 billion euros compared with 122.6 billion in the same period a year ago. On a country-by-country basis, Germany reported the largest surplus in the nine-month period, at 117.9 billion euros. France, the eurozone's second largest economy, reported a deficit of 65.8 billion euros for the period, Eurostat said. In a separate release, Eurostat said eurozone hourly labour costs rose by 2.7 percent in the third quarter of this year, compared with the same period in 2010. The biggest annual increases was registered in Slovakia, while hourly wages fell 1.1 percent in Ireland, the only country to observe a decline.
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