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Shrinking US trade gap seen as positive for economy
AFP - Saturday, July 11
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - The US trade deficit unexpectedly fell in May as exports picked up for the first time in two months, government data showed Friday, in a report seen as positive for an ailing US economy.
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The deficit fell nearly 10 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted 26.0 billion dollars, the lowest level since November 1999, the Commerce Department said.
Most analysts expected the gap would widen to 30 billion dollars amid the global recession that has battered international trade. The May deficit was 57.1 percent lower than a year ago, while trade volume grew only 0.4 percent.
"Amidst all the downsides of the recession there is actually one positive, the trade deficit is narrowing," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.
"That should lead to trade adding to growth quite solidly," he added.
The Commerce Department lowered the April deficit to 28.8 billion dollars from 29.2 billion dollars.
The reduction in the May trade gap resulted from a slight decline in imports and a stronger increase in exports as the weak dollar made US goods and services more affordable.
A steep 11 percent drop in oil imports -- with volume dropping despite rising oil prices -- accounted for half the decline in the May trade gap. Excluding oil, the trade gap closed 4.7 percent.
With the world's biggest economy grappling with a severe recession that began in December 2007, imports fell for the 10th consecutive month, by 0.6 percent, to 149.3 billion dollars, their lowest level since July 2004.
Exports, which had fallen for the two preceding months, increased 1.6 percent, their strongest gain since July 2008, to 123.3 billion dollars.
Exports of goods rose 2.0 billion dollars to 82.1 billion, as increases in exports of industrial supplies and materials; foods, feeds, and beverages; consumer goods; and capital goods more than offset a decline in automotive vehicles, parts, and engines.
"The improvement in exports combined with stability in non-oil imports is a welcome sign that the headlong decline in world trade volumes has come to an end," said Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight.
The International Monetary Fund this week said it now sees global trade volume plunging by 12.2 percent this year, instead of the 11.0 percent seen in April, before a pickup of 1.0 percent in 2010.
The fresh data showed the US deficit with Canada, its largest trading partner, tumbled nearly in half in May from April, to 628 million dollars, a trough last seen in March 1994.
The politically sensitive gap with China, the second-largest US trading partner and responsible for more than half of the 0deficit, widened 4.4 percent to 17.484 billion dollars from 16.754 billion in April.
Critics accuse the Asian powerhouse of keeping its currency artificially low to gain a trade advantage.
The deficit with the 16-nation eurozone halved in May from April, to 2.096 billion dollars.
With Japan, the deficit narrowed to 1.914 billion dollars from 3.218 billion.
Analysts said the improved trade data should add economic growth in the second quarter, after the world's largest economy contracted 5.5 percent in the first quarter and plunged 6.3 percent in the preceding quarter -- the steepest decline in decades.
"The US trade numbers will help slow the rate of contraction in the US," said Jennifer Lee of BMO Capital Markets.
IHS Global Insight's Gault said that "trade will make a big positive contribution to gross domestic product growth in the second quarter, probably adding around 1.5 percentage point to the growth rate."
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A cargo ship is loaded in the Port of New Orleans in 2007. The US trade deficit unexpectedly fell in May as exports picked up for the first time in two months, government data showed, in a report seen as positive for an ailing US economy.
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