Coldiretti: Extra-EU Trade Up in 2005
Staff Writer - January 27, 2006
The Italian food product trade balance with non-European countries increased 3.4% in 2005. This is what emerges from an analysis by the farmers' union, Coldiretti, on the basis of the ISTAT (Italian Institute of Statistics) figures on trade with countries outside the EU in 2005, compared to 2004.
Agriculture and the food industry have registered a rise in exports of 5.2% and 4.2% respectively, while imports remain broadly stable for agriculture (up 0.1%) and increase by 4.2% for the food industry.
The overall result has been a containment of the food trade deficit, though this remained heavy at 2.11 billion euros in 2005.
Among the positive data, the performance of the Italian wine export to the US, which rose by 15.7% in 2005, according to figures by the Italian Wine and Food Institute for the first 10 months of the year stands out. Italian wines alone account for a third of the total foreign wines consumed in the US (33%), followed by Australia (24.5%) and, in third position, France.
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