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Foreign Trade in Figures

Trade represents 81% of Germany’s GDP (World Bank 2020, down from 87.6% one year earlier), and the country is both the world’s third-largest importer and exporter. The country is by far the world’s largest exporter of automobiles (19.3% of total exported cars worldwide). In 2020, the four largest groups of exported goods made up almost half of the country’s exports: vehicles and vehicle parts (15.5%), machinery (14.5%), chemical products (9.3%) and computer/electrical and optical equipment (9.1%). The main imported goods were computer/electrical and optical equipment (11.2%), vehicles and vehicle parts (10.8%), chemical products (7.8%), machinery (7.7%), electrical equipment (6.5%) and pharmaceuticals and similar products (6.3% - BMWi).

Germany’s primary trade partner is the European Union which accounted for 67.1% of exports and 65.3% of imports (BMWi). Accounting for 8.6% of German exports, the U.S. remained Germany’s most important export market in 2020, followed closely by China (8%), France (7.5%) and the Netherlands (6.4%). Imports came chiefly from China (11.4%), ahead of the Netherlands and the U.S. (7.7% and 6.7%, respectively). Germany continues to be the “most open” economy of the G7 countries.

Germany’s surplus from trade in goods in 2020 contrasted with a deficit from trade in services: the country exported goods worth USD 1.380 billion (a decrease of 7.3% year-on-year), importing a total of USD 1.170 billion (-5.1% - WTO). Germany is a net importer of commercial services: in 2020, the country exported USD 305 billion worth of services, while imports were slightly higher, at USD 307 billion.
However, the country’s trade balance is structurally positive: in 2020, Germany’s current account surplus declined again, falling to 7% of GDP, but remained the highest ratio in the world (second in nominal terms, after China). In regards to Germany’s vast trade surplus, since 2014 the European Commission has encouraged the country to favour internal demand dynamics instead of exports, in order to mitigate the existing “macroeconomic imbalance” in the EU (as per the Commission rules, EU countries should not have an external trade surplus of more than 6% of their GDP).