European Rebalancing Continues

The Euro area trade surplus was €3.7 billion in September 2009, compared to a €6.0 billion deficit in September 2008.

This happened despite the fact that Germany saw its surplus drop to €10.6 billion in September 2009, down from €15.3 billion in September 2008.

This means that the deficit for the rest of the Euro area dropped from €21.3 billion in September 2008 to just €6.9 billion in September 2009. As other surplus nations like Holland, Austria and Finland also saw their surpluses drop, this reflects a really big reduction in the trade deficits of countries like France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.