Eurostat: China will become the EU's largest trading partner by 2020

BRUSSELS, Feb. 15 (Xinhua Li Weizhi) Eurostat released foreign trade data on the 15th, 2020 EU 27 countries and China's goods trade in the epidemic in two directions, China for the first time overtook the United States as the EU's largest trading partner.

According to the data, EU imports from China will be 383.5 billion euros in 2020, an increase of 5.6% over the previous year, while exports to China will increase by 2.2% to 202.5 billion euros.

Trade between Europe and the United States has fallen in both directions. Last year, EU imports from the US were 202 billion euros, down 13.2 percent from the previous year, and exports to the U.S. were 353 billion euros, down 8.2 percent.

According to statistics, China is the only one of the EU's top ten trading partners for goods to achieve two-way growth in trade.

Last year, EU exports were 1931.6 billion euros, down 9.4 percent from the previous year, while imports were 11.6 percent lower at 1714.3 billion euros. However, EU exports rose 1.5 per cent year-on-year in December, indicating a pick-up in foreign trade.

Zhang Ming, head of China's mission to the European Union, said earlier that China's imports and exports to the EU grew by 5.3% last year, and China has leapt to become the EU's largest trading partner, which fully reflects the strong resilience and importance of China-EU economic and trade cooperation. (Complete)