What is Balance of Trade

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the effects of the economic crisis on the trade among the Southeastern European (SEE) countries. The countries were divided into two groups: the EU countries and non-EU countries. Macroeconomic performances and international trade indicators of the 11 observed countries were analysed for the period 2007-2019, and the effects of the economic crisis were present in all the observed countries, particularly the effects on the export performances. The crisis also affected the entire import of the non-EU countries. The EU countries recovered from the crisis faster than the non-EU countries. However, the non-EU countries achieved a more significant inflow of foreign direct investment in the post-crisis period, which significantly improved the position of the balance of payments in these countries. The observed countries had managed to stabilise their trade flows all until the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. The impact of the current crisis on these countries remains to be estimated in the future.