The 13-nation euro zone registered a trade surplus of 4.6 billion euros (6.3 billion U.S. dollars) in July, as compared with 1.1 billion euros a year ago, Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said Monday.

But the 27-member European Union (EU) reported a trade deficit of 13.8 billion euros.

The euro zone consists of Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

Month-on-month, seasonally adjusted exports of the euro zone fell 0.5 percent in July, while imports rose 3.6 percent; seasonally adjusted exports of the EU dropped 1.5 percent in July, while imports were up 3.2 percent.

In the first half of this year, the EU's trade with most of its major parters grew. However, its exports to the United States decreased 2 percent as compared with the same period last year, and its imports from Norway and Russia were down 10 percent and 6 percent respectively.

The largest increases were for exports to Russia (30 percent) and India (20 percent).

Meanwhile, the EU's trade surplus with the United States decreased to 38.4 billion euros in the first half of this year from 43.3 billion euros in the same period last year. The EU's trade deficit with Russia dropped to 27.8 billion euros in the same period from 41.4 billion euros a year ago.

Concerning the total trade of EU member states, the largest trade surplus was observed in Germany with 97 billion euros in the first half of this year, followed by the Netherlands with 20.6 billion, Ireland with 15.6 billion, and Sweden with 8.5 billion.

Britain reported the largest trade deficit in the first half of this year, with 65.4 billion euros, followed by Spain with 44.9 billion, France with 19.3 billion and Greece with 19 billion.