The State Statistical Office has published foreign trade data for January to July. Exports stand at 5.1 billion euros, up 8.4 percent. Imports stand at 7.2 billion euros, up 7.9 percent.

Both figures are growing. That is good news right up to the moment you notice they are growing from different bases.

Import coverage by exports is 70.9 percent. The trade deficit reached 2.44 billion dollars.

One place where the number hurts

Over seven months, food exports from Macedonia came to 331.6 million euros. In the same period we imported food worth 656.6 million euros.

Twice as much food imported as exported, in a country that has Pelagonia, Tikveš, the Strumica valley and Ovče Pole. That is not a data point about global trends - it is a data point about what we have stopped producing for ourselves.

What we actually export

The top of the export list has been consistent for years: catalytic converters on precious metal supports, ignition wiring sets for vehicles, aircraft and ships, and seat parts.

Those are products of foreign factories in the technological-industrial zones. Macedonian export statistics are in large part the statistics of somebody else's production cycle passing through our territory.

The best confirmation is the import list. Top of it is platinum and platinum alloys, unwrought or in powder form. In other words: the raw material comes in as platinum and leaves as a catalytic converter. The difference in value is our contribution - and it is real, but smaller than the export figure suggests.

Who we trade with

Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Greece and Serbia account for 49.4 percent of total trade volume. EU member states - 58.7 percent.

So nearly three fifths of everything entering and leaving this country passes through one economic zone. That is fine as long as that zone is trading. When Germany sneezes, we feel it in the export figure the following quarter.

And one detail about reading statistics

The same report, read in dollars, shows export growth of 13.9 percent. Read in euros - 8.4 percent. Read in denars - 8.45 percent.

The difference is exchange rate, not production. Next time somebody hands you a figure for export growth, the first question is not how much - but in which currency.