Germany Increases Exports and Trade Balance

German exports increased by 3.8% in April compared to the same month a year ago, while imports remained nearly unchanged, resulting in a wider trade balance for Europe’s most powerful economy.
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The German Federal Statistical Office revealed that exports rose to 104.3 billion euros, while imports reached a total of 78.7 billion euros.

Compared to the figures from March, exports were stable, while goods purchased from overseas fell by 0.2%.

The foreign trade balance showed a surplus of 25.6 billion euros in April, in contrast to a year ago where the surplus amounted to 21.8 billion euros.

According to provisional results of the Deutsche Bundesbank for April, the current account of the balance of payments unveiled an excess of 28.8 billion euros.

When breaking down the direction of trade, the data revealed that 61.3 billion euros worth of commodities that were dispatched to the rest of the European Union  (EU), with 52.9 billion euros of goods brought in from the bloc.

Exports to the rest of the EU climbed by 7.3%, whereas imports also increased by a slower rate of 2%.

While to the rest of the euro area, exports jumped up to 38.4 billion euros, an increase of 5.8%, in return imports fell by 0.9% amounting to 35.6 billion euros, again highlighting Germany’s trade dominance.

Globally, the figures showed that exports to countries outside of the EU decreased by 0.7% to  a total of 43 billion euros, imports fell by a larger scale 3.8%, down to 25.7 billion euros.

 French Employment Grows in First Quarter

The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, has shown that payroll employment increased by 40,400 jobs for the first quarter of this year.

After the exclusion of temporary work, the surge in new jobs eased slightly to 38,400, although still a leap from the 27,500 that was created for the fourth quarter last year.

Year on year, the figures were even more encouraging, as a rise of 1% or 159,000 positions was achieved.

The acceleration of employment in the services sector made a huge contribution to the employment rise, with an increase of 45,900 jobs, an improvement on the 37, 700 positions generated in the final quarter of last year.

Temporary employment in the sector did slow sharply by 17,000 jobs quarter on quarter.

There was less encouraging news for industry, where there was 8,400 fewer  positions than was created for the final three month of last year.

Unemployment in France has stubbornly hovered around and above the 10% mark since 2013.

This prompted President Francois Hollande to push thorough a raft of labour law reforms, where workers can be laid off more easily, and firms have greater licence to reduce pay.

The legislations have provoked a strong backlash, with many street protests taking place.

Euro Rises and Falls Against Dollar

 The EUR/USD rate has fallen slightly back into the favour of the greenback this morning, as the euro is currently buying $1.13, falling from $1.14 this morning CET.

Yesterday was the beginning of the corporate bond buying as part of the European Central Bank’s 80 billion euro per month quantitative easing (QE) programme, which they hope will boost inflation and growth.

So far, the markets have reacted without a great level of concern over the extension of  QE.