As a result, the trade balance posted in the first month of the year showed a deficit of 2.6 billion euros - 7.9% lower than in January 2014 (a deficit of 2.82 billion euros). The coverage rate stood at 87.3%, 0.6 points higher than in January 2014 (86.7%).
In real terms, export decline was slightly higher (3%) since export prices measured using Unit Value Indices (UVIs) rose by 0.1%. As regards imports, the decrease was smaller in real terms (0.8%) since prices measured using UVIs fell by 2.8%.
The decrease in Spanish exports and imports in January was, among other factors, due to the calendar effect given that January 2015 had one working day less than the same month in 2014. Hence, in seasonally-adjusted figures corrected to account for the calendar effect, exports fell by 0.2% year-on-year and imports fell by 0.4%.
Exports from Spain's main partners performed badly this month, with the exception of Japan. German exports were down by 0.6%, French exports by 1.8%, Italian exports by 4.2% and UK exports by 12.6%. Exports from both the Eurozone and the European Union fell by 2.7%. Outside the EU, US exports fell by 4.7% in January. Japan posted outstanding 17% year-on-year export growth.
The non-energy balance showed a deficit of 579.2 million euros (a surplus of 739.2 million euros in the same month last year) while the energy deficit shrank by 43.3%.
Geographic areas
In January 2015, exports to the EU accounted for 67% of the total, higher than the 64.9% posted in January 2014. This increase is due to the greater contributions from both the Eurozone, which rose to 52.2% in January 2015 (51.4% in January 2014), and the rest of the European Union, which rose to 14.8% in the first month of 2015 (13.5% in January 2014). Exports to the European Union rose by 0.2% year-on-year, boosted by the increase in exports to the rest of the European Union (6.3%) as exports to the Eurozone fell by 1.4%.
Highly disparate results were seen with regard to the main destinations for Spanish exports: exports to Germany rose by 7.2% (11.6% of the total) and those to Italy rose by 2.9% (7.6% of the total); while exports to France fell by 4% (16.4% of the total) and those to Portugal fell by 8.7% (7.1% of the total). Outside of the Eurozone, it is worth noting the 19.3% increase in exports to the United Kingdom.
Weak demand from non-EU countries had a negative effect on Spanish exports, which fell by 8.7% year-on-year (-0.6% in January 2014) and accounted for 33% of the total (35.1% in 2014). However, significant increases were seen in exports to Indonesia (83.7%), Egypt (65.6%), Canada (45.8%), the United Arab Emirates (23.5%), Saudi Arabia (18.6%), South Africa (17%), Brazil (16.6%) and the United States (13.1%).
Economic sectors
From a sectorial point of view, the automotive sector posted outstanding results this month with an increase in exports of 21.8%, accounting for 17.3% of the total; exports from the manufactured consumer goods sector rose by 3.5% to account for 9.8% of the total; and exports from the food, beverage and tobacco sector rose by 0.6% to account for 17.5%.
Hence, in terms of contribution to the year-on-year export trend, the automotive sector contributed 3 percentage points; the manufactured consumer goods sector contributed 0.3 points; while the food, beverage and tobacco sector contributed 0.1 points. By sub-sector, the main positive contributions came from motor vehicles and motorcycles (3.3 points, mainly due to increased exports to the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and Italy), clothing (0.5 points, mainly due to increased exports to Italy and Germany), fruit, vegetables and legumes (0.4 points to the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Italy) and iron and steel (0.4 points to Italy, the United States, Germany and Portugal).
As regards the negative contributions, it is worth highlighting the capital goods sector (-2.3 percentage points), the energy products sector (-1.6 points), the raw materials sector (-0.7 points) and the non-chemical semi-manufactured products sector (-0.5 points). In the case of energy products and raw materials, the effect of a highly noticeable fall in prices has reduced the total value of these exports. Furthermore, another possible impact may be being caused by a reorientation of both capital goods and energy products, raw materials and semi-manufactured goods towards expanding domestic industry, as shown by the increases in both the IPI (industrial production index) and the manufacturing industry PMI in January.
Import performance can also be explained by the positive trend in domestic demand. Hence, the progress made in investment in capital goods and domestic consumption continued to provide an import incentive (according to national accounting data from the National Statistics Institute on the fourth quarter of 2014, investment in capital goods has posted high positive year-on-year rates for seven consecutive quarters and domestic consumption has posted four straight quarters of year-on-year growth). Hence, durable consumer goods imports grew by 19.6%, imports in the automotive sector grew by 16.3% and imports of manufactured consumer goods increased by 9.9%. In turn, imports in the capital goods rose by 6% - especially those of industrial machinery (12.4%) and transport equipment (4.6%). On the other hand, it is worth noting the fall in imports in the energy products sector (-39.5%) due to falling oil prices.
In terms of contribution to the import trend, it is worth highlighting the automotive sector, with a contribution of 1.9 points divided between motor vehicles and motorcycles (0.9 points) and automotive components (1 point). Also significant contributors were the manufactured consumer goods sector (1.1 points), the capital goods sector (1 point) and the durable consumer goods sector (0.4 points).
The autonomous region contributing most to the year-on-year rate of change in total exports in January was the Region of Valencia, which contributed 2 points (its exports accounted for 12.2% of the total and increased by 20.8%). In second place was Aragon, with 0.7 points (its exports accounted for 4.4% of the total and rose by 21.1%). In third place was Catalonia, with 0.3 points (26.6% of the total and a 1% increase in exports).
Pool Moncloa