The euro zone registered an estimated trade deficit of 10.8 billion euros in January, the European Union (EU)'s statistics agency said on Wednesday. A year ago the deficit stood at 1.6 billion.

Meanwhile, Eurostat revised the December deficit for the 12-nation euro zone from 0.9 billion euros to 0.7 billion.

In January, exports in the euro zone rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.4 percent from December and imports were up 0.3 percent.

For 2005 as a whole, euro zone trade posted a surplus of 23.3 billion euros compared with a 71.5 billion surplus in 2004.

In January, the 25 member states of the EU recorded a deficit of 24.6 billion euros, compared with a revised 8.9 billion euro deficit in December and a year-earlier deficit of 13.9 billion.

Compared with December last year, exports fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.2 percent and imports by 1.5 percent in the union.

During 2005, the EU recorded a deficit of 105.5 billion euros, compared with 62.9 billion in 2004.

Among EU members, Germany posted the largest surplus of 158.0 billion euros in 2005, followed by the Netherlands and Ireland. Britain registered the largest deficit of 100.2 billion euros, followed by Spain and France.

Source: Xinhua