The good performance of tourism and financial services is not enough to compensate for the plunge of the exchanges of goods, penalized by the rise in gas prices and hydrocarbons.
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The outbreak of energy prices occurred in the first half, which increases inflation and complicates the end of the month, also degrades the commercial accounts of France. Over the first six months of 2022, it saw its imports, inflated by the rise in oil and gas prices, increase by 26 % compared to the second half of 2019. They reached a total of 356 billion euros , According to figures published, Friday, August 5, by the Directorate General of Customs and the Banque de France.
Although in the rebound phase from the low point reached in 2020, the increase in exports, which do not benefit from the same “price effect”, does not compensate for this additional cost. They believed 13 %, half as much as imports, reaching 285 billion euros. So much so that the deficit in the exchanges of goods amounts to 71 billion euros in a semester against 51 billion in the second half of 2021 and 84 billion over the whole year.
he alone, the increase in energy hollows out the deficit of more than twenty billion. The energy bill, in fact, increased from 27 billion euros to the second half of 2021 to 48 billion in the first half of 2022. But, tempers the executive, the hexagon is not the only one to undergo this collateral effect of the increase in energy prices. “In a very disturbed world since the assault of Ukraine by Russia, France is experiencing the same fate as the main countries of the European Union,” argues Olivier Becht, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Europe and Foreign affairs, in charge of foreign trade, attractiveness and French from abroad. “All have seen their commercial balance deteriorate, since the beginning of 2022, due to the explosion of the price of energy.”
“structural problems”
The ministry prefers to highlight the resilience of certain exporting sectors and the found dynamism of tricolor exchanges, after the slump due to the COVVI-19. Outside energy and military equipment, he argues, the balance of trade would improve “slightly”. Some sectors have experienced good export increase since the end of 2019, including the food industry (+ 25 %), textiles (+ 26 %), cosmetics and perfumes (+ 22 %).
However, the two locomotives of French export remain lagging behind: aeronautics, still withdrawn from a good third party compared to the pre-crisis (- 34 %), and, in a Less measurement, the automobile (- 8 %). Another notable evolution, and the sign may be a reorganization of value channels on a global scale, it is the European partners and customers in the country who contribute most to the increase in its exports.
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