The European Union's trade deficit deepened in November 2008 to 23.8 billion euros, according to figures released on Friday by the statistics agency Eurostat.

For the same month in 2007 the figure was 17.0 billion euros. In October 2008, it was 17.2 billion euros.

Seasonally adjusted exports fell by 5.7 percent and imports by 3.2 percent in November compared with the previous month, Eurostat said.

Within the euro zone, the trade deficit was 7.0 billion euros in November, in contrast to a surplus of 2.3 billion in November 2007, and 0.5 billion euros in October 2008.

For the first 10 months of 2008, the EU's deficit with Russia increased 29 percent from the same period in 2007 to 60.8 billion euros, followed by Norway with a 27-percent rise to 40.5 billion euros.

In the same period, the EU's deficit in energy trade rose to 312.3 billion euros from 215.8 billion a year earlier, while the surplus for machinery and vehicles rose to 131.4 billion euros from 101.4 billion euros.

The largest increases in imports were from Russia, up 29 percent and Norway, 27 percent, while the largest hikes in exports were with Brazil, up 28 percent, followed by Russia, 24 percent.

Experts attributed the deficit expansion to the global financial crisis, which has hurt the EU's exports.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2009)