Status: 23.08.2021 10:20 a.m.
German exporters are facing increasingly tough competition from Asian producers. According to a study, the share of Chinese goods imports into the European Union has increased significantly.
Goods from China are increasingly competing with the German export industry in the EU. According to a study by the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW), the share of Chinese goods imports increased significantly between 2000 and 2019. In the same period, the share of German goods fell slightly.
For example, German imports into EU countries made up 14.0 percent 21 years ago, Chinese imports only 2.7 percent. In 2019, the share of goods from China was 7.6 percent, while that from Germany was only 13.8 percent.
Relevant decline in market share
According to the study, this development took place in parallel with a depreciation of the euro against the Chinese yuan. So Germany has lost market share in Europe, although its exchange rate-related price competitiveness compared to China has tended to improve: “That makes the decline in share even more relevant,” is the conclusion of the economists.
According to the institute, this trend is particularly evident in the so-called sophisticated industrial product groups. These include pharmaceutical and chemical products, metal products, electrical devices and equipment such as video cameras, machines, and automobiles, auto parts, and other vehicles. In these areas things always went particularly well for German exporters because of their “obvious specialization in these goods”, as the IW study puts it.
However, the proportions have shifted in favor of China in recent years. In 2000, German products from these areas still accounted for 17.5 percent of EU imports. It reached its maximum in 2005 with 19.0 percent, while in 2019 it was only 17.0 percent. The share of Chinese goods in this area, on the other hand, rose continuously from 2000, when it was still 2.6 percent, to 9.7 percent until 2019.
China is no longer just a workbench
China’s focus on the demanding industrial sectors becomes even more recognizable if you look at the proportion of goods exported from China to the EU: “The proportion of these focused product groups in EU imports from China in all product groups rose from 50.7 percent Year 2000 to 68.2 percent in 2019. It is now even higher than the German share of 65.5 percent, “reports the IW.
Furthermore, China’s export successes can no longer be put into perspective with the previously valid reference that they consist mainly of imported preliminary products that are only assembled in China – on an extended workbench, so to speak. The opposite is true: the share of domestic added value in China’s exports rose sharply between 2005 and 2016 and is now even higher than the German share in most industries, as economists have calculated.