China becomes European Union’s biggest trading partner, as it overtakes US

China has become the biggest European Union (EU)’s trading partner, having overtaken United States (US) last year.

According to Business Standard, the report released last year by the EU statistics agency, Eurostat,  shows that:

• “China overtook the U.S. as the EU’s biggest trading partner, with China-EU trade volume reaching 586 billion euros ($711 billion), compared to 555 billion euros between the U.S. and the EU.
• “EU exports to China rose by 2.2 percent to 202.5 billion euros, while imports from China increased by 5.6 percent to 383.5 billion euros.
• “EU’s trade with the U.S. dropped significantly in 2020, with a 13.2 percent dip in imports and 8.2 percent in exports.”

READ: China’s richest man worth $94.1 billion earned a fortune from selling bottled water

It is being noted that the contributory factor to the supremacy of China is that after it suffered from the coronavirus pandemic during the first quarter, it recovered vigorously fast with consumption even exceeding its level in 2019 at the end of 2020.

What you should know

• Britain, which is no longer part of the European Union, became the third-largest trading partner for the bloc, behind China and the United States.
• It is important to note that the dethroning of the US was made possible as the EU and China were seeking to ratify a long-negotiated investment deal that would give European companies better access to the Chinese market
• According to Eurostat, “trade with the UK plummeted in 2020, the year Britain officially left the bloc, though it was in a transition period to blunt the effects of Brexit until December 31. EU exports to the UK fell by 13.2 percent, while imports from across the channel dropped by 13.9 per cent.”
• The EU countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

READ: China to overtake United States as the world’s biggest economy in 2028