The federation of Greek exporters on Tuesday sounded the "warning bell" over what it called a significant increase this year in the balance of trade deficit, mostly generated by a 56-percent rise in exports over the first five months of 2019.
The federation called on the new government to immediately implement measures to boost domestic production, while adding that exports, nevertheless, continued to grow.
Based on provisional data for May 2019, including fuel products, supplied by Greece's statistical authority (EL.STAT), exports increased by 89.6 million euros (3 percent) over the same month in 2018. The total reached 3.04 billion euros.
Over the Jan-May period, exports were up by 589.8 million euros (8.9 percent), to reach 14.02 billion euros, up from 13.43 billion euros in the corresponding five-month period of 2018.
At the same time, however, imports skyrocketed in May 2019, rising by an astronomical 874.3 million euros (20.1 percent) to reach 5.23 billion euros, up from 4.36 billion in the same month of 2018. Not counting fuel products, imports reached 3.74 billion euros, up from 3.26 billion euros.
In the first five-month period of the year, imports increased by nearly two billion euros, reaching 23.44 billion euros, up from 21.52 billion euros in the corresponding period of 2018.
