German trade surplus shrinks in October

Germany's trade surplus contracted in October as imports grew faster than exports, official data showed on Monday. Europe's biggest economy exported goods worth a total 92.8 billion euros ($119.8 billion) in seasonally-adjusted terms in October, an increase of 0.2 percent from September, the national statistics office Destatis said. Imports, on the other hand, grew by 2.5 percent to 77.6 billion euros, so that the seasonally-adjusted trade surplus fell to 15.2 billion euros in October from 16.9 billion euros in September. Taking the 10 months to October as a whole, however, German exports rose by 4.8 percent to 924.4 billion euros, this time in unadjusted terms, while imports were up 1.7 percent at 752.2 billion euros. The office did not provide seasonally-adjusted data for the 10-month period. That meant the unadjusted January-October trade surplus increased to 159.2 billion euros from 130.1 billion euros a year earlier.