Impact of the Global Crisis on Trade Relations between the European Union and China

Inotai, András (2010) Impact of the Global Crisis on Trade Relations between the European Union and China. Hungarian Statistical Review, 88 (SN14). pp. 46-68. ISSN 0039-0690

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Abstract

The paper concentrates on bilateral trade relations and does not tackle other, sometimes extremely important areas of political, economic, cultural and other contacts between the European Union and China. China became the largest supplier to the EU in 2005. The global crisis has further enhanced bilateral trade relations, since China’s share in total extra-EU imports rose from 15 to almost 18 percent. Not less importantly, the Asian country proved to be the only export market of the EU with positive growth in 2009. Still, substantial Chinese trade surplus, although declining, remained more than manifest. The statistical analysis identifies partly widely different member country performance with China, with special reference to the new member countries of the EU. Hungary, as several other countries, could substantially increase its exports to China in 2009. Still, the largest winner was Germany that accounts for almost half of the total EU exports to the Asian country and could establish a much more balanced trade flow than most of the other member countries. Recently, China is the second largest extra-EU market for the EU, ahead of Russia and Switzerland, and the largest extra-EU supplier of not less than 13 member countries, including the United Kingdom and France (ahead of the USA), as well as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania (ahead of Russia). Even more importantly, in the first half of 2010 China became the largest exporter to Germany, surpassing the half-century long traditional EU-member exporters, both the Netherlands and France.

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