France trade deficit has hit a record €84.7billion, which equals a 3.4% of the country’s GDP, the worst trade deficit in its history, AFP reports.
According to the report which was quoting the French Customs, stated that the balance of trade is weighed down mainly “by energy, and to a lesser extent, by manufactured products”, specify the customs in their press release.
The worsening of the France trade deficit is explained “by a more marked rebound in imports (+18.8% after -13% in 2020) than in exports (+17% after -15.8%)”, explains this same source.
Until then, the largest France trade deficit was recorded in 2011, with 75 billion euros.
“I have already said it several times, it is a black point” underlined Bruno Le Maire on France Inter . “It is explained first by the energy bill which we have talked about a lot.”
“There are positive points too, especially on the balance of payments, when we integrate services, services are doing very well,” continues the Minister of the Economy.
“But why do we have this deficit of more than 80 billion euros? There is the energy bill, and then the industrial weakening over the past thirty years.
We have started to recover 5 years ago with the President of the Republic, by creating a more favourable fiscal environment, by lowering production taxes, by training, by qualifying employees for new industrial professions.”
“Record Surplus Of Services”
AFP also reported that for his part, the Minister of Foreign Trade Franck Riester estimated during a press briefing that “it is important to look at the picture of our commercial activity” pointing in particular to a “record surplus in services, at 36.2 billion euros. ‘euro’.
“With regard to the balance of goods, the deterioration is mainly due to the increase in the energy bill of 17.9 billion euros”, he further indicated.
In addition, “strong export sectors are still below their 2019 level”, such as aeronautics which has only returned to 57% of its level before the health crisis, points out the minister.
Finally, the France trade deficit is explained by the strength of the recovery, while the French economy recorded a growth of 7% last year, which “affected the imports of consumer goods, industrial tools produced at abroad”, according to Franck Riester.
“Act 1 of reindustrialization was Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term,” says Bruno Le Maire.
“I would like Act 2 of the industrial reconquest to be at the heart of Emmanuel Macron’s 2nd five-year term, which I call for. There is no other solution to restore France’s external trade balance than to rapidly massively reindustrialize our country.”