Chile posted a trade deficit of $224 million in December compared with a $837 million surplus a year earlier, while the 2008 surplus narrowed 57 percent from a record to $10.160 billion, the central bank said on Wednesday. The country's trade surplus has been shrinking due to weaker prices for copper, which accounts for more than half the value of Chile's exports, and a sputtering world economy.
The country posted its first deficit in six years in September. "This is due basically to the big drop in copper prices and the deceleration in the rest of the world, which has also had a significant effect on industrial exports," said Rodrigo Aravena, an economist with the Banchile brokerage.