Miguel Ángel Pérez Castro
University of Granada, Faculty of Social Sciences, Campus de Melilla, Spain
pcastro@ugr.es
Miguel Ángel Montero Alonso
University of Granada, Faculty of Social Sciences, Campus de Melilla, Spain
mmontero@ugr.es
Ana Cristina Santos Amaro
Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Coimbra Business School - ISCAC, Portugal
aamaro@iscac.pt
ABSTRACT
This contribution analyses the balance of trade (BOT) between Spain and Portugal, during the period 2000-2014, since the implantation of the
Euro and the simplification of commercial-administrative relations. Initially, trade relations between both countries were clearly positive,
essentially due to the economic growth, almost fully globalized. This allowed the consolidation of both countries in the European Union,
within the single market and common currency. Nevertheless, the economic crisis in the last years motivates a dissimilar decline of trade
relations and BOT. A methodology measuring the Trade Openness, through the ratio of exports and imports of goods in relation to GDP, is
implemented. Also, the nature of the traded goods is evaluated and the impact of the geographical proximity of both country regions is
studied. As a major conclusion, the performed analysis points out that the geographical closeness cannot be considered a core reason to
explain the observed trade indicator values.
KEYWORDS:
import-export, balance of trade, trade openness, iberian trade, geographical impact, product impact.
