Airbus nosedive spurs soaring French trade deficit

France slipped into its biggest monthly trade deficit ever because of weak foreign sales by aircraft maker Airbus, a cornerstone of the country’s exports, customs said.
Exports fell 7.7 per cent in January from December and imports rose by 2.9 per cent, resulting in a record trade gap of €7.9 billion (Dh30.61bn), the customs office said.
The figure is a setback for the French government which has been trying to improve its trade balance in the hope of creating jobs at home and rekindling sluggish growth.
It comes after the trade deficit already rose by more than three billion euros in 2016 over the previous year, to €48.1bn.
The customs office said the January fall by "extremely low Airbus sales". A pullback after traditionally strong end-year deliveries had always been expected, it said, "but the level of group sales is weaker than in previous months of January".
Airbus delivered just 25 aircraft in January, after 111 in December.
Economists warned that France may be relying too much on the aerospace sector, especially Airbus which last month reported nosediving annual profits as charges related to problems with its A400M military cargo transport plane sent earnings into a tailspin.
"The fact that we are still very dependent (on aerospace) shows that there is a problem with our foreign trade," said Axelle Lacan, an economist at Coe-Rexecode.

Source: The National