Latvia Foreign Trade June 2007

Well this time here's a chart (see below) from Latvijas Statistika, showing the recent evolution of foreign trade and the trade deficit. Again the picture does not differ from one area to another. In June 2007 both exports and imports fell slightly in comparison with May 2007, and the monthly deficit accordingly reduced ever so slightly.

As we saw yesterday, manufacturing industry actually contracted slightly in June when compared with the previous year. May retail sales were up, on the other hand,by a seasonally adjusted 2% over May, and a year on year 24.4% (although this was a marginal reduction with the aggregated increase of H1 2007 over h1 2006). None of this bodes well. The changes, insofar as they are occurring in the right direction are moving too slowly, and meantime the price index is ticking away upwards.

On the