Exports tumble for third month running

Portugal’s exports market is contracting. Exports fell 3.4% in June – the third consecutive fall over the past three months.

Imports fell too by 7.6%, also for the third month running according to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) released on Wednesday.
Fuels and lubricants were among the categories that influenced performance, “reflecting reductions in prices, but also a base effect given that in June 2022 significant increases had been registered for the transactions of these products, in anticipation of scarcity and increasing prices as a result because of the conflict in Ukraine.
Excluding fuels and lubricants, exports actually increased 1.1% and 2.7% for imports. Therefore, unit price indices saw variations of -4.8% in exports and -9.1% in imports”, but as INE notes, if petroleum products are not included, the variations are +0.4% for exports and -2.6% for imports.
The fall in petroleum prices explains to a great extent the decreases in the export of fuels and lubricants that reached 41.0% in June. Moreover, there was also a fall in industrial supplies (-10.8%, mainly to Spain), particularly paper pastes, paper and chemical products”.
In imports, falls in prices were also felt and the base effect in the decrease of fuels and lubricants (-47.4%), particularly from Brazil and Angola. “There was also a decrease in industrial supplies (-8.8%), principally plastics and rubbers”, states the national statistics office.
As to the countries with which Portugal has trading relations, there were particularly steep falls in exports to the United States (-24.3%) and imports from Brazil (-45.8%), especially fuels and lubricants.