EU reduces trade deficit with China, but still at 291 billion euros. Car imports grow

Brussels -“De-risking, not decoupling.” After the almost 400 billion euro record in 2022, Brussels sounded the alarm on the trade imbalance with China. The risk reduction strategy inaugurated by the EU has already reversed the trend: Eurostat data show that in 2023, the trade deficit with Beijing was 291 billion, 27 percent less than the previous year. In December, during the 24th EU-China Summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made it clear that with the term de-risking, the EU intends to “address excessive dependencies and diversify supply chains,” as even in 2023, China was the EU’s largest partner for EU imports of goods. Member Countries buy a fifth of the bloc’s non-EU imports from the Asian giant: more than the United States (13.7 percent), the United Kingdom (7.2 percent), Switzerland (5.5 percent) and Norway (4.7 percent).

On the other hand, the EU exports 8.8 percent of its total exports to China. It is the third largest destination, preceded by the United States (19.7 percent) and the United Kingdom (13.1 percent). Among EU member states, the Netherlands was the largest importer of Chinese products in 2023, worth 117 billion euros, followed by Germany (95 billion) and Italy (48 billion). Berlin is the only country in the EU – besides Luxembourg, but with significantly larger numbers – to have a positive trade balance with China: in fact, Germany exported goods worth 97 billion euros to the People’s Republic, making it the largest exporter to Beijing, followed by France (25 billion) and the Netherlands (22 billion). Made in Italy exports goods to China worth 19 billion euros. Compared to last year, the trade balance between Brussels and Beijing has hinted at a movement toward rebalancing, with one significant exception: cars and motor vehicles. A fear repeatedly raised by the EU, which, in October, launched an investigation into the People’s Republic’s subsidies in electric car production, the 2023 figure confirms Brussels’ concerns. Chinese cars worth 3.5 billion euros entered the EU market, 36.7 percent more than in 2022.

Telecommunication equipment remains in first place among products imported from China, although it dropped from 63.1 billion in 2022 to 56.3 billion in 2023. Electrical machinery and apparatus (36.5 billion) and automatic information processing machines (36 billion) are in second and third place, respectively. The largest decline was in the import of organo-inorganic and related compounds, used as catalysts in chemical reactions, with a 45.4 percent drop compared with 2022.