Exports from R.I. rise 5.9% in May

EXPORTS from Rhode Island rose 5.9 percent in May after falling in both March and April, according to a report from e-forecasting.com. / COURTESY E-FORECASTING.COM
EXPORTS from Rhode Island rose 5.9 percent in May after falling in both March and April, according to a report from e-forecasting.com. / COURTESY E-FORECASTING.COM

PROVIDENCE – Exports from the Ocean State rose 5.9 percent in May to $164.7 million on a month-to-month, seasonally adjusted basis after falling 15.1 percent in April, according to an international trade statistics report from e-forecasting.com.
Overseas shipments from Rhode Island manufacturers, which accounted for 65 percent of the month’s exports, decreased 2.7 percent from April to May to $106.8 million, seasonally adjusted.
According to the report, Rhode Island’s foreign sales in May reflected the mix of trends in foreigners’ demand for goods made by different industries.
Exports of nonmanufactured goods totaled $57.8 million in May, a 26.5 percent increase from the $45.7 million shipped in April. Nonmanufactured goods include agricultural goods, mining products and re-exports, which are foreign goods that entered the state as imports and are exported in the same condition.
Year over year in May, total exports from Rhode Island fell 9.7 percent, or $17.7 million, from May 2012. For the state’s manufactures, exports dropped 23.3 percent, or $33.4 million, from April last year.
Nationally, exports rose by 0.1 percent to $130.2 billion from May 2012 to May 2013. From April to May 2013, national exports fell 0.7 percent.
Year over year, for the first five months of 2013, Rhode Island’s exporters sold 11.2 percent less than they did during the first five months of 2012, as overall exports from the U.S. increased 0.8 percent year over year, according to the report.
Nationally, Rhode Island ranked No. 45 in export growth among the 50 states for the first four months of the year.
The e-forecasting report said that a rising U.S. dollar was having adverse effects upon the foreign demand for goods made in Rhode Island. According to the report, the value of the dollar has increased 14 percent against a “basket of currencies” of major trading countries.
Still, the International Monetary Fund predicts that the volume of global trade will grow 3.1 percent in 2013 and then accelerate to 5.4 percent in 2014.
In a report analyzing the export statistics, e-forecasting Chief Economist Evangelos Otto Simos said that due to the IMF prediction, “emerging and developing countries will be driving foreign demand for Rhode Island’s exporters contributing to local production and jobs substantially more than the high income industrial countries.”

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