VIENNA, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Austria's trade deficit has seen a sharp reduction over the first five months of the year as export growth outpaced that of imports, Statistics Austria revealed in its preliminary figures on Tuesday.
Compared to the same period in 2017, the deficit shrank from 2.36 billion euros (2.74 billion U.S. dollars) to some 1.99 billion euros (2.3 billion U.S. dollars).
Exports saw a strong 4.5 percent increase to reach 61.84 billion euros, while imports saw 3.7 percent growth to reach 63.84 billion euros in total.
The trade imbalance with fellow European Union member states improved from 1.35 billion euros down to 1.22 billion euros, while that with outside states also saw a reduction from 1.02 billion euros to 0.78 billion euros.
The statistics office noted however that the month of May saw a slowdown in trade of about 2.2 percent year-over-year, with the trade imbalance growing from 0.28 billion euros to 0.71 billion euros.
