MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Euro zone June trade surplus was the highest since 1999

Switch to surplus was helped by sales to Asia and emerging markets

The Euro zone trade surplus hit 14.9bn Euros in June up from 200m Euros a year ago. The surplus was the highest since the European Union's statistics agency began collecting data in 1999.

Germany, the Netherlands and Republic of Ireland recorded the biggest surplus among the 17-member euro area and the wider 27-member EU, said Eurostat.

The EU trade surplus was 400m Euros, compared with a 15.3bn Euro deficit a year earlier. The switch to a surplus was helped by increased exports to Asia and emerging markets including Russia, Japan, Brazil and South Korea.

The data underlined the region's dependence on external sources of growth as austerity measures in core Euro zone countries have damaged household spending and business confidence.

“Companies have to look for foreign buyers to replace austerity-hit domestic demand and wage restraint and leaner production improve competitiveness,” said Berenberg Bank analyst Christian Schulz.

“Germany is still playing a big part. Although it has recently started losing competitiveness vis-à-vis its Euro zone partners, the German economy continues to enjoy a high and still improving level of competitiveness at the global level,” he added.

Earlier this week, Eurostat said the Euro zone economy had shrunk by 0.2% in the April-to-June period from flat growth in the previous first quarter.

Capital Economics warned: ”With global growth slowing, we don't expect the resilience of the core's exports to last much longer. We still see both Germany and France slipping into recession in 2013”.