Brussels – The European Union is strengthening its position in the global trade of high-tech products and ended 2025 with a surplus of 32.4 billion euros. This marks the second consecutive year in the black following four years of deficits, between 2020 and 2023, according to the latest Eurostat data. In 2025, EU countries imported high-tech products worth 534.1 billion euros and exported 566.5 billion euros, resulting in a surplus of 32.4 billion euros. This growth is part of a long-term trend: since 2015, imports have risen by an average of 6 per cent year on year, while exports have grown by 7 per cent.
However, it is not just trade that is growing: in 2025, the EU produced 532 billion euros worth of high-tech goods, almost double the 287 billion euros recorded in 2015. Production, too, has therefore increased by an average of 6 per cent year on year in the last decade. This category includes research and development-intensive products, ranging from aerospace and pharmaceuticals to electronics and telecommunications.
However, the return to a surplus does not negate the EU’s heavy reliance on imports, particularly from China. In 2025, Beijing accounted for 28 per cent of European purchases of high-tech products, worth 150.4 billion euros, ahead of the United States, which accounted for 25 per cent with 131.4 billion euros. Imports from China consist mainly of electronics and telecommunications products, which account for 48 per cent of European high-tech imports from the country, and computers and office equipment, at 31 per cent. From the United States, on the other hand, the EU mainly imports aerospace products (36 per cent) and pharmaceuticals (33 per cent). Switzerland, the third-largest trading partner accounting for 6 per cent of imports, is heavily focused on pharmaceutical products, which account for 71 per cent of European high-tech imports from the country.
While China dominates imports, the United States is the main market for European hi-tech products. In 2025, the US accounted for 34 per cent of EU exports, worth 195.1 billion euros, ahead of the United Kingdom with 52.5 billion euros (9 per cent) and China with 48.1 billion euros (8 per cent).
Exports to the United States were driven primarily by pharmaceutical products, which accounted for 62 per cent of European high-tech exports to the country, followed by aerospace at 12 per cent. Exports to the United Kingdom and China were more diversified: to London, 23 per cent were pharmaceuticals, 19 per cent were aerospace products, and 19 per cent were electronics; to Beijing, 30 per cent were electronics and telecommunications, 27 per cent were aerospace, and 20 per cent were scientific instruments.
The hi-tech surplus therefore indicates Europe’s ability to sell high-tech products on global markets. Still, the figures also show the extent to which the supply chain remains intertwined with the world’s major technological powers. The challenge for the EU is therefore not merely to export more, but to strengthen its domestic production capacity sufficiently to reduce strategic dependencies without losing access to global value chains.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
