Readers might take note that last autumn's fairly weak numbers are possibly setting the table for relatively good 4th quarter year-on-year results. No guarantees, of course, but with October auto production by value already being reported at +7.6% over 2013 readers can draw their own conclusions. Over 80 percent of domestic manufacture is destined to leave the country.
From the point of view of export destinations the left hand chart below compares the annual change in September goods exports, the horizontal axis, to each region's share of total exports in the same month. Clearly, Europe is doing a bit of underperforming here with Asia and North America picking up the slack. The weakness, in absolute terms, of Latin America may be indicative of nothing more than the volatility of large capital goods deliveries. Then again, it may not.
The list of heroes and culprits in this is story is on the right, also comparing growth to share. France, given its current economic weakness, stands out alot... for being markedly positive. Our first thoughts were that this increase was influenced by auto exports and merely reflected France being a transshipment point for Renault and PSA en route to other markets. A couple of phone calls to clarify the matter and it turns out that Spanish customs, which is the source for the data we use, filters out false destinations of that sort (product of the globalization that has made a shambles of much trade accounting). These appear to be final demand deliveries to one of the 'sick men of Europe'.
As an aside - for those who track these kinds of statistics, Eurostat trade figures do not make any adjustment for transshipments.
