In May, the trade balance recorded a USD 1.5 billion surplus, which was below the USD 2.4 billion deficit observed in the same month of the previous year, but marked an improvement over the USD 0.7 billion surplus registered in the previous month. The 12-month moving sum of trade recorded a USD 18.8 billion surplus in May, which was down from the USD 19.7 billion surplus seen in the previous month.
Exports in May decreased 4.4% over the same month of the previous year, which was an improvement over the 8.0% drop observed in the previous month. However, imports rebounded from a 14.9% decrease in April to a 0.5% increase in May, thus hitting the highest reading since February 2015.
In 2016, FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect exports to increase 1.6% (USD 229.8 billion) and they see the trade surplus reaching USD 17.9 billion. For 2017, panelists expect export growth to accelerate to 4.8% (USD 240.9 billion) and the trade surplus to tally 30.1USD billion.