Euro Area in International Trade Surplus of 27.5 Billion Euros

The euro area has a 27.5 billion euros trade surplus with the rest of the world in April, an increase of 6.6 billion euros for the same month a year ago, according to Eurostat.

In total, the first estimate on the volume of trade with the rest of the world reached 172.3 billion euros, even though this was a 1% decrease from April 2015, an increased surplus was still achieved.

This was because of a greater fall of 5% of the amount of imports bought by euro area countries, declining to 153 billion euros worth of goods and services.

For the first quarter of the year compare to the corresponding period last year, the euro area also increased their trade surplus from 67.6 billion euros to 81.3 billion euros.

As the volume of imports again were reduced by a deeper rate than exports from the euro area.

There was a different pattern for the whole of the European Union (EU), as their exports were down by 6%  to 146.9 billion euros, in April compared to the same month a year ago.

This was less than the decline in imports, which fell by 4% to 141.3 billion euros, the trade surplus of 5.6 billion euros was down from 8.2 billion euros for April in 2015.

UK in Employment Boost

Unemployment in the UK has fallen to 1.67 million, down by 20,000 in the period between February and April, when compared to the three months to January this year.

A year ago, there was 148,000 more people who were inactive, and this latest rate of unemployment is the lowest that has been recorded since between March and May 2008, as the financial crash set in.

As a proportion of those eligible to work in the UK, unemployment is at 5%, which is the lowest percentage it has been since August to October in 2005.

The full employment rate, the share of people aged from 16 to 64 who were in work, totalled 74.2%, which is the joint highest since comparable records began in 1971.

This was due to there being 304,000 more people working in full time positions in contrast to a year ago, and a 157,000 increase for those in part time work.

Average weekly earnings for UK employees increased by 2% including bonuses, and by 2.3% excluding bonuses compared with a year earlier.

The figures will be encouraging to the UK government, especially as economic growth for the first quarter of this year eased to 0.4% from 0.6% in the final quarter of last year.

 Pound Stabilises Against US Dollar

The GBP/USD rate is currently just under $1.42 this morning GMT, having reached a recent nadir of below $1.41 yesterday evening.

With just over a week to go to the June 23 referendum, the ‘Brexit’ polls are certain to play a more significant role over the pound’s fortunes than economic data.

A latest poll conducted by TNS, has found that ‘Leave’ has a seven point lead over ‘Remain‘, continuing the growing momentum that the campaign to walk out of the EU has received.

Societe Generale said in their daily round up that the bottom line for sterling from this point, is that after recent moves, the risks post-referendum are pretty much symmetric.

And that GBP/USD would probably now see nearly as big an initial rally on ‘remain’ as a fall on ‘leave’.