Ireland has recorded the second largest trade surplus in the euro zone after Germany.
Ireland had a surplus of €10.1 billion, compared to Germany's €39.5 billion, according to figures from Eurostat, the EU's official statistics agency.
Britain registered the largest deficit (- €21.6 billion), followed by Spain (- €12.9 billion).
Overall, the first estimate for euro zone trade with the rest of the world in May 2003 was a €3.7 billion surplus, compared with €8.8 bn in May 2002.
The April 2003 balance was + €3.5 billion, compared with + €4.5 billion in April 2002.
In May 2003, exports, seasonally adjusted, decreased by 3.4 per cent compared to April 2003 and imports fell by 2.1 per cent.
EU15 trade flows with its major partners grew except for imports from the USA (-16 per cent) and Switzerland (-4 per cent) and exports to the USA (-8 per cent), Japan (-3 per cent) and Switzerland (-2 per cent).
The most notable increases were in imports from Norway (+16 per cent) and China (+15 per cent) and exports to China (+22 per cent) and Turkey (+11 per cent).