Foreign trade: the trade deficit falls to 99.6 billion in 2023

If the best is sometimes the enemy of the good, in terms of France's trade balance we can say that it is better, but not yet good.

According to customs figures published this Wednesday, the trade balance deficit (on trade in goods) reached nearly 99.6 billion in 2023. This deficit is also the second highest in history after the record of 162.7 billion recorded in 2022, against a backdrop of explosion in imported energy prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Over the past year, the cumulative trade balance was reduced by almost 63 billion euros.

After a catastrophic year on this point in 2022, the drop in the value of energy imports in 2023 made it possible to

reduce the deficit compared to the previous year.

After the surge in the barrel of oil (more than 100 dollars on average during the spring and summer of 2022), the price of Brent fell to 0, just over 80 dollars on average in 2023. As a result, the deficit on hydrocarbons ( bringing together liquefied natural gas, gaseous natural gas and crude oil) melted by 25.5 billion.

That on refined oil improved by 8.6 billion last year.

The return to excess electricity production has also been a real breath of fresh air (balance +11.3 billion).

In all, the balance of energy goods improved by 46.6 billion, or 70% of the increase in the overall balance for 2023. Overall,

,” notes Stéphane Colliac, Senior Economist at BNP Paribas.

“The weakness of French industry”

Excluding energy, the deficit is also down on manufactured products by almost 22.8 billion euros.

As with energy, however, this improvement is more due to economic conditions returning to normal than to an improvement in the performance of the French economy.

This increase comes mainly from “other industrial products” whose improved balance explains three-quarters of the reduction in the manufacturing deficit.

The majority of the improvement in these products concerns perfume and cosmetic chemicals (+7.7 billion), textiles (+5.4 billion).

Note, however, that these improvements compared to 2022 must be put into perspective.

In a context of shortages caused by the recovery after Covid, the

item had in fact seen certain prices soar following the explosion in demand.

France, which is traditionally in deficit on these items, had seen the deficit widen drastically.

In 2023, this situation has in fact normalized rather than structurally improved.

Read alsoCompetitiveness: the French position structurally degraded

So the outlook for the current year is rather gloomy.

,” warns the BNP expert.

Equally pessimistic, Sylvain Bersinger, chief economist of the Asterès firm, considers that the persistent negative trade balance has deep causes which relate to the French economic fabric as a whole.

For him,

is this structuring element.

, he explains, drawing on the example of European partners who are recording a chronic trade surplus (Germany, but also Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy).

For his part, Laurent Saint-Martin, general manager of Business France, prefers to approach this problem as a challenge.

This is actually its mission.

.

To achieve this, Business France intends to rely on its activity of supporting export companies (more than 13,000 beneficiaries, in 2023), particularly SMEs, and on the development of the French industrial fabric.

, recalls the general director who pleads for

.

“

,” he says.