External Trade - June 2005

According to preliminary data, seasonally adjusted exports rose by 2.9% and imports by 4.4% month-on-month. The trend component rose by 1.5% in exports and by 1.6% in imports (Table 6, Graphs 1 and 2). The growth rate of the trend in both exports and imports has been increasing since April 2005.

In terms of year-on-year comparison, current price exports rose faster than imports (+4.7% and 0.4%, respectively). Due to the development of exchange rate, exports and imports increased by 10.3% and 5.7% in terms of euros and by 10.5% and 5.9% in terms of US dollars, respectively.
The trade balance ended in a surplus of CZK 7.5 billion, which was by CZK 6.7 billion more than in June 2004. This has been the highest June surplus ever recorded in the history of the Czech Republic. The trade balance with the EU member states reached a surplus of CZK 23.8 billion, and that with non-EU states ended in a deficit of CZK 16.3 billion. The balance improved especially in trade in ‘machinery and transport equipment’ (the surplus rose by CZK 5.0 billion), ’miscellaneous manufactured articles’ (the surplus increased by CZK 1.6 billion), ’chemicals and related products’ (the deficit decreased by CZK 1.2 billion) and ’manufactured goods classified chiefly by material’ (the surplus rose by CZK 0.5 billion). The trade in ’mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials’ and ’food and live animals’ worsened its deficits by CZK 1.1 billion and CZK 0.5 billion, respectively.
The favourable development of the balance of trade in ‘machinery and transport equipment’ (exports 3.2% up and imports 3.8% down) primarily resulted from marked improvement of trade in computers (by CZK 3.1 billion), road vehicles (by CZK 1.6 billion) and general industrial machinery and equipment (by CZK 1.5 billion). On the other hand, the balance got worse in trade in power-generating machinery and equipment (the CZK 1.3 billion surplus turned into a deficit of CZK 0.1 billion) and telecommunications and sound-recording equipment (the surplus fell by CZK 1.0 billion).
The growth of imports of ‘mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials’ by 26.0% was mainly fuelled by higher imports of crude petroleum (by 23.8% in terms of value, by 6.2% in terms of volume) and natural gas (by 47.1% in terms of value, by 12.3% in terms of volume).
Territorially, improvements were recorded in both trade with the EU member states (the surplus grew by CZK 3.1 billion) and with non-EU states (a decrease of the deficit by CZK 3.6 billion). The balance improved particularly in trade with the United States (the deficit fell by CZK 1.9 billion), the United Kingdom (the surplus increased by CZK 1.4 billion), Ukraine (the CZK 0.3 billion deficit turned into a 0.9 billion surplus), France (the surplus rose by CZK 1.1 billion), and Germany (the surplus grew by CZK 1.1 billion). It deteriorated in trade with the Netherlands (a deficit of CZK 0.8 billion as against a surplus of CZK 1.4 billion), Russia (the deficit grew by CZK 1.5 billion) and Austria (the surplus fell by CZK 1.2 billion).

Over last twelve months, compared to preceding twelve months, exports and imports were up by 17.1% and 11.2%, respectively. The total balance reached a surplus of CZK 22.8 billion, which was an improvement of CZK 82.7 billion.
Trade in ‘machinery and transport equipment’ (a CZK 87,3 billion increase in surplus), ‘chemicals and related products’ (a CZK 14.0 billion fall in deficit) and ‘manufactured goods classified chiefly by material’ (a CZK 12.9 billion growth of surplus) exercised a positive effect on the development of the balance. Deficits rose in trade in ‘mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials’ (by CZK 22.3 billion), ‘crude materials, inedible, except fuels’ (by CZK 5.5 billion), ‘beverages and tobacco’ (by CZK 1.5 billion), and ‘food and live animals’ (by CZK 1.2 billion).


Territorially, the surplus of trade with the EU member states grew by CZK 84.7 billion, of which by CZK 35.1 billion in trade with Germany, by CZK 16.8 billion in trade with Slovakia and by CZK 8.6 billion in trade with Hungary. The CZK 6.6 billion deficit in trade with France turned into a CZK 8.0 surplus. The trade surplus with the Netherlands dropped by CZK 14.7 billion and with the United Kingdom by CZK 2.3 billion. The deficit of trade with non-EU states rose by CZK 2.0 billion, particularly with Japan (by CZK 14.5 billion), the United States (by CZK 5.3 billion), and Russia (by CZK 2.9 billion), and the surplus of trade with Turkey went down by CZK 3.1 billion. The trade deficits with Malaysia and China decreased by CZK 5.4 billion and CZK 1.2 billion, respectively.

In January-June 2005, exports and imports grew by 8.6% and 3.1%, respectively. Trade balance ended in a surplus of CZK 38.0 billion, compared to the deficit of CZK 7.8 billion in the same period of 2004.

According to the communication by the Directorate General of Customs, data were received from 95.9% of companies obliged to report within the Intrastat system. As far as large companies are concerned (those whose annual value of exports to or imports from the EU member states exceeded CZK 100 million), the response rate was 98,7%.
Data for companies exempted from the reporting duty (those whose annual value of trade with the EU member states was below CZK 4 million for goods dispatched and below CZK 2 million for goods received) and data for companies that failed to report were imputed. The imputation methods are based on data that companies had supplied in the previous period. As to the June data, the share of the imputed value in total exports was 1.3% and in total imports 2.2%.

Analysis - External trade in the 1st half of 2005

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Note
Contact: Petra Křížová, phone (+420) 274 054 270, e-mail: petra.krizova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: Intrastat reports and single administrative documents (SADs) collected by the Directorate General of Customs (DGC)
Related publication: 6001-05 External Trade of the Czech Republic in January-June 2005 ( /ep-6-opendocument )

The data for individual months of 2004 and the data for individual months of the 1st quarter of 2005 are updated referring to 27 May 2005 closing date. The final 2004 data will be released in September 2005.
The June 2005 data are preliminary; they refer to 1 August 2005 closing date and will be updated in September 2005, together with the data for individual months of the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2005.