Destatis statistics suggest Europe’s biggest economy has not fully recovered German exports fell in February, official data showed on Tuesday in another sign that Europe's biggest economy has not fully recovered from a dip at the end of last year. Figures provided by the Destatis statistics office showed that seasonally adjusted exports fell by 1.5 percent from January and by 2.8 percent from February 2012, to a total of €90.4bn ($117.5bn), while imports fell by 3.8 percent to €73.3bn, giving Germany an aggregate trade surplus of €17.1bn, up from €16.8bn in January.
The German economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012, and while business activity has picked up since then, it remains relatively weak, in part owing to chronic problems elsewhere across the 17-nation eurozone.
In France, the second biggest eurozone economy, the trade deficit widened in February to €6.01bn from €5.65bn in January as a drop in exports was not made up for by a bigger drop in imports, the customs service said.