Exports

Switzerland exported $320 million worth of arms and military equipment last year, with Turkey, Nigeria and West Germany the main customers, the military department said Friday. Exports were down by about 10% from 1985.

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The nation's busiest seaport, Los Angeles, is on pace to have a record year in exports. July exports were up 12.8%, to 165,135 containers from 146,369 in the same month a year ago. "This is a robust total for exports," said Port of Los Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield. In 2010, the port set a record for exports with more than 1.8 million containers; it is on pace to surpass that this year. But as usual, imports dominated the port in July, an indication of the nation's huge trade deficit.

U.S. refineries exported a record amount of refined fuels in 2011 to markets in South America, Central America and Europe. It was one reason why Americans spent a record amount on gasoline this year: Supplies that might have helped lower prices here had been shipped abroad. In 2007, U.S. exports of all kinds of fuel held steady throughout the year at 1.24 million to 1.25 million barrels a day, according to Energy Department statistics. But by 2011, exports of diesel, gasoline and other products surged.

Oil prices have fallen, but U.S. motorists aren't benefiting because the nation's refineries continue to boost exports and reduce supplies available domestically. The results could be seen in the Energy Department's weekly survey of service stations around the U.S. In California, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline jumped 13.5 cents in the last week, to $3.944, the Energy Department said. That's also 90.3 cents a gallon higher than the average a year earlier. Nationally, the Energy Department said, the average price climbed 4.7 cents a gallon to $3.674 over the last week — 99.2 cents higher than a year earlier.

U.S. wine exports hit record levels in 2011, helped by soaring demand from Asia and a weak dollar that made American wines more affordable. Shipments for the first 11 months of 2011 reached $1.23 billion, according to the California Wine Institute. That's up 23% from the same period in 2010, and it's a 9% increase over the $1.1 billion in exports tallied for all of 2010, even though December 2011 results have yet to be reported. Full-year 2011 statistics will be released later this year.

Japan's exports of videotape recorders rose 59% in January from a year earlier, the Electronics Industries Assn. of Japan said. It also said Japanese manufacturers produced 1.941 million videotape recorders in January, up 28.6% from a year earlier but down 21.2% from December.

The U.S. trade deficit widened by an unexpectedly large margin in December as American exports continued to grow but imports rose at an even faster pace, largely because of a sharp increase in petroleum purchases, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. It was the third straight month of rising trade deficits -- and the surprisingly big jump in December, to $40.2 billion from $36.4 billion in November, suggested that U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter, initially estimated at 5.7%, could be revised down slightly, said Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics.

Southern California's twin ports are on track to post total exports for the year that approach the records set before the global recession, just as the region's preeminent air freight hub ? Los Angeles International Airport ? is on pace to set an all-time high for outgoing cargo. Those are good signs for the local economy, despite a less robust showing by imports, which account for the bulk of cargo traffic through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Export-driven sales growth is helping to lead the region's rebound, experts say; overall, international trade provides work for more than 500,000 people in the Southland.