French Trade Gap Narrows

(RTTNews) - France's trade deficit narrowed in August as the decline in imports exceeded the pace of fall in exports, data from the customs office showed Wednesday.

The trade deficit fell to EUR 6.12 billion from EUR 6.59 billion in July. In the same period last year, the deficit was EUR 4.84 billion.

Economists had forecast the trade shortfall to fall moderately to EUR 6.5 billion.

Exports dropped 0.8 percent on a monthly basis in August. At the same time, imports declined 1.5 percent.

On a yearly basis, exports and imports grew 5.3 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively.