WASHINGTON, Jan 11: The US trade deficit widened a sharp 9.3 per cent in November to a larger-than-expected $63.1 billion, mainly due to surging crude oil costs, the government said on Friday.

The US trade deficit with major trading partners swelled to its highest level since September 2006, according to the Commerce Department. Most economists had only expected the trade shortfall to widen to around $59.5 billion.

The US trade gap ballooned as imports rose at a faster clip than exports.

Imports increased 3.0 per cent to $205.4 billion while exports increased a much milder 0.4 per cent to $142.3 billion.

“That loud sucking sound is coming from the US trade account. The nominal deficit worsened sharply on the petroleum account but it also worsened excluding petroleum. What's worse, exports have slowed ... are slowing sharply and on a broad front as well. That is not good news,” said Robert Brusca, an economist at FAO Economics.

Other economists also voiced concern about the pace of US exports.

“It’s troubling that there was a slowdown in export growth, it perhaps suggests that external demand for US output may not be strong enough to keep the US out of a recession and it highlights the importance of doing more to energise domestic spending in the United States,” said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Investors Service.The widening of the deficit also threatens to derail Washington’s bid to tame the trade gap.

For the first 11 months of 2007 the deficit was gauged at $650 billion, compared with $698 billion during the same period of 2006.

Hopes that the deficit would narrow have been stymied by spiking oil prices and the price America, the world's biggest energy importer, has to pay to import oil.

The price of imported oil struck a record $79.65 a barrel in November lifting the US petroleum deficit to $30 billion and its highest level on record, the government survey showed.

Oil prices have increased amid geopolitical angst, tight supplies and increased demand from rising economic powers like China and India.—AFP