Latvian trade statistics

Latvian Statistics office reports that Latvian exports grew 23.4% year-on-year in October 2007, while imports grew only 12.1%. This is the third consecutive month of exports growing faster than imports, as the graph below shows (the green line is the exports, the red line is the imports):It's a good sign. Latvian imports are nearly twice the exports and Latvia pays for a lot of that by borrowing money from Scandinavian banks. That is something that cannot last forever and it's good that adjustment has started. It's still a long way to go, though: Latvia has only gone from importing 2.01 times its exports (October 2006) to 1.83 times its exports (October 2007). I hope the trade balances out before Latvia runs up too much of debt, but I'm far from sure about that.

In other news from the statistics office, the inflation is up from 13.2% to 13.7%.