The trade deficit (on shipment basis), in the current financial year up to February 2004 has nearly doubled to about $ 15.5 billion, compared with $ 8.0 billion, in the corresponding period of the preceding year. Notwithstanding the widening of the trade deficit, the current account remained in surplus due to robust invisible earnings.
The euro is a currency without a State; this is the lack it suffers from. The divergences, sometimes the diffidence, that still mark the relations between the member states weaken the Economic and Monetary Union in the eyes of the international community and in those of its citizens.