Austria's trade drops sharply in early 2009

VIENNA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Austria's trade volume dropped more than 20 percent year on year in the first two months of this year, Statistics Austria said Tuesday.

For the period, the value of exports dropped 25 percent to 14.83 billion euros (19.88 billion U.S. dollars) compared with the same period last year, while imports fell 20.1 percent to 15.55 billion euros, the statistics office said.

In February, the value of imports from other European Union member states slided 22.2 percent to 5.72 billion euros, while exports dropped 25.4 percent to 5.5 billion euros.

Imports from non European countries amounted to 2.24 billion euros in February, a drop of 16.7 percent from the same period last year, while exports stood at 2.20 billion euros, down 19.5 percent, it said. (1 U.S. dollar = 0.746 euro)