VIENNA, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- Austria's foreign trade flourished during the first three quarters of 2018, with growth in both imports and exports as well as a reduction of the trade deficit, Statistics Austria revealed on Friday.
For the year through to September, imports increased 5.2 percent to 115.2 billion euros (131.2 billion U.S. dollars) while exports grew six percent to reach 111.6 billion euros.
As a result, the trade deficit fell from 4.27 billion euros to 3.68 billion euros.
Trade within the European Union (EU) followed the same trend, with imports up 5.2 percent and exports up 6.4 percent.
Neighbouring Germany was once again the most important trading partner by far, with Austrian exports there up 5.8 percent to 33.97 billion euros.
Trade with non-EU countries was also strong -- imports up 5.1 percent, and exports up a slightly lesser 4.9 percent.
