PARIS, Feb 7 (AFP): France cut a crippling trade deficit by nearly nine per cent last year partly due to falling imports, official data showed on Friday in figures that contrasted starkly with a record surplus in Germany.
A trade surplus is a vital factor of growth in an economy, but France has developed a chronic structural deficit in recent years.
Correcting this is a top priority for the Socialist-Green government, which is moving towards reducing charges on companies and cutting deeply into public spending to contain the overall tax burden.
The latest data for France, the second-biggest eurozone economy, showed that in 2013 the trade deficit fell by 6.0 billion euros to 61.2 billion euros ($83.2 billion), Trade Minister Nicole Bricq said.
By contrast, Germany, Europe's largest economy, achieved a trade surplus of 198.9 billion euros in 2013, the highest since foreign trade data have been compiled.
In 2012, the German surplus had stood at 189.8 billion euros.
In France, exports fell by 1.3 per cent last year against a background of weakness in the world economy including a slowing of growth in emerging markets.
But imports fell by a higher 2.3 per cent.
Without exports booked by the aerospace sector, the deficit would have been far higher.
French aerospace exports are largely in the form of exports of Airbus airliners which are assembled in several European Union countries with parts from inside and outside the EU but which figure as finished products in the French national trade accounts.
This sector contributed a record net export surplus of 22.0 billion euros.
The two other sectors making a big contribution to the improvement were the agricultural and food, and pharmaceutical industries.
