RIGA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Latvia's foreign trade deficit widened 4.3 percent in the first eight months of the year to 649.1 million Latvian lats due to continued strong growth in imports, the statistics office said on Monday. The figure was up from 563 million lats in the same year-ago period and 571 million lats last month. The statistics office said in a statement imports from the former communist Baltic state rose by 11.0 percent from last year, while exports grew by 8.3 percent. The country has seen high imports ever since regaining independence in 1991 due to sweeping reforms to turn the country into a Western-style market-based economy. Latvia is on track to join the European Union by 2004. The EU remained Latvia's key trading partner and accounted for 60.3 percent of total exports and 53.4 percent of total imports, the statistics office said. Timber - Latvia's main export - saw foreign sales in the first eight months of the year at 308 million lats, up from 296 million last year.