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Foreign Trade in Figures

Germany is an export-oriented economy, with trade representing around 83% of its GDP (World Bank, latest data available), and the country is both the world’s third-largest importer and exporter. Germany is by far the world’s largest exporter of automobiles: motor vehicles and parts made up 17.3% of the country’s exports in 2023 (EUR 273 billion), making them the top export product. Machinery (14.4%) and chemical products (9.0%) followed in second and third place, respectively, among the leading export items (Destatis). In the same year, the main imported categories were electrical machinery and equipment (14.9%), machinery and mechanical appliances (12.1%), vehicles (10.8%), and mineral fuels and oils (9%).

In 2023, Germany’s primary export destination was the U.S. which accounted for 10% of the total, followed by France (7.6%), the Netherlands (7.1%), China (6.2%), and Poland (5.8%). Imports came chiefly from China (11.6%), ahead of the Netherlands (7.6%), the U.S. (7%) Poland and Italy (6% and 5.3%, respectively). Overall, the People's Republic of China remained Germany's most important trading partner for the eighth consecutive year in 2023, with a foreign trade volume of EUR 253.1 billion. However, the trade volume with China was just EUR 0.7 billion higher than that with the United States, which stood at EUR 252.3 billion. Germany remains the key trading partner for EU countries: in 2023, it was the leading destination for merchandise exports from 15 of the 27 other Member States (Destatis).

The country’s trade balance is structurally positive. According to the latest figures from the national statistical office Destatis, in 2023, Germany saw a decrease in both exports and imports: goods exported amounted to EUR 1,575 billion, marking a 1.1% fall, while imports totalled EUR 1,356 billion, reflecting a 9.9% decrease compared to one year earlier. As the drop in imports was much more pronounced than the drop in exports, the export surplus more than doubled from the previous year. The foreign trade balance showed a surplus of EUR 218.5 billion in 2023. 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). Germany is generally a net importer of commercial services: in 2023, imports totalled USD 508.2 billion against USD 440.1 billion in imports (WTO). According to preliminary figures from Destatis, in the period Jan-Nov 2024, Germany exported EUR 1,427.8 billion worth of goods, against EUR 1,108 billion in imports (-1.4% and -11.4% year-on-year, respectively).