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Foreign Trade in Figures

Trade represents 100% of Germany’s GDP (World Bank 2022, up from 89% one year earlier), and the country is both the world’s third-largest importer and exporter. Germany is by far the world’s largest exporter of automobiles: accounting for 15.4% of exports, automobiles and their parts were its main export product in 2022, with a value of around EUR 245 billion (Destatis). Machinery (13.3%) and chemical products (10.3%) ranked second and third, respectively. In the same year, the main imported goods were petroleum gas (4.6%), vehicles and vehicle parts (4.4%), and petroleum oils (4%).

In 2022, Germany’s primary export destination was the U.S. which accounted for 9.8% of the total, followed by France (7.4%), the Netherlands (7%), and China (6.7%). Imports came chiefly from China (12.8%), ahead of the Netherlands and the U.S. (7.6% and 6.2%, respectively). Overall, China was Germany's most important trading partner in 2022 for the seventh consecutive year (data Destatis). Germany continues to be the “most open” economy of the G7 countries.

The country’s trade balance is structurally positive. According to the latest figures from the national statistical office Destatis, in 2022, Germany saw a notable increase in both exports and imports: goods exported amounted to EUR 1,574 billion, marking a 14.1% rise, while imports totalled EUR 1,494.4 billion, reflecting a 24.1% increase compared to 2021. The foreign trade balance for 2022 recorded a surplus of EUR 79.7 billion, the lowest since 2000. This figure represents a significant decline (for the sixth consecutive year), with the export surplus more than halving compared to the 2021 surplus of EUR 175.3 billion, mostly due to the steep rise in the cost of energy imports. The main trade surpluses were recorded with the United States (EUR 62.8 billion), France (EUR 48.2 billion), and the United Kingdom (EUR 33.4 billion). 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; nevertheless, the trend reversed in recent years. In 2022, Germany had the highest value of services exports (EUR 408 billion) and services imports (EUR 438 billion) among the EU Member States (data Eurostat).
According to preliminary figures from Destatis, in the period Jan-Oct 2023, Germany exportes EUR 1,304.6 billion worth of goods, against EUR 596.8 billion in imports (-0.8% and -2.7% year-on-year, respectively). The EU accounted for 54.3% of total exports and 66.6% of imports.