Moldova's external trade in the first 7 months of the year followed the trends noticed in the earlier periods, the imports substantially exceeding the exports. The trade balance deficit goes on rising because of this phenomenon, Info-Prim Neo has learnt from a press release issued by the National Statistics Bureau. The data have been obtained from customs declarations. The exports in July 2008 stood at $156.1 million, up 46.3% compared to July 2007. At the same time, the imports were up 48.8% related to July 2007. The exports to the EU countries account for 52.1%, compared to 50.0% in January-July 2007. Romania, the Russian Federation and Italy are the countries Moldova exports most to. The deliveries to Romania rose 1.7 times, up 42% to Russia and up 30.9% to Italy. Textiles, food, drinks and tobacco account for most of the exports. 44.4% of the total were imported from the EU, while 35% of the imported goods came from the CIS countries. Most of them came from Ucraine, Romania and Russia. Substantial growth was noticed concerning mineral products (+49.7%), machines and devices. The trade balance deficit was $1,8855 billion, up $677.9 million (+56.1%) than in January-July, 2007. The natural entities exported goods worth $0.1 million in the first 7 months of the year and imported goods worth $98.2 million. Compared with January-July 2007, the exports went down 21.3%, and the imports soared 53.3%, mainly because of car imports (+54.1%) from Germany, Italy, France and the USA.