According to the ZVEI Foreign Trade Report, in January 2014 exports of the German electrical and electronic industry (E&E) came to 13.1 billion €. With it, they were 2.7% up on their pre-year level. Already in the fourth quarter of last year exports started to grow once again (by 1.1% onto 40.7 billion €). Before they had fallen in four consecutive quarters. In the full last year 2013 the sector’s exports of 158.3 billion € slightly failed their pre-year level by 1.0%. German imports of electrical and electronic products have grown substantially stronger than exports in January of this year. They increased by 6.3% (yoy) onto 12.1 billion €. Last year imports had declined slightly by 1.6% onto 135.0 billion €.
The E&E industry’s exports to the industrialized countries picked up by 3.5% (year over year) onto 8.9 billion € in January. Hence, they performed better than exports to the emerging markets, which rose by 1.2% to 4.2 billion €. Note that exports to the emerging countries meanwhile soak up one third of the sector’s total exports. The recent development seems to be fairly compatible with the current shift of global growth forces back to the industrialized countries. Concerning the industrialized countries, exports to the Eurozone increased by 7.7% onto 4.4 billion € (again yoy) and to the United Kingdom by 7.5% to 688 million € in January. At the same time, exports to the USA and Japan went down by 4.4% (onto 1.0 billion €) and 20.9% (onto 219m €), respectively. Regarding the group of emerging markets, exports to China rose by 4.9% onto 1.0 billion €, whereas exports to Brazil failed their preyear level by 7.9% (onto 119m €).
Exports of the German E&E industry to Russia came to 5.6 billion € in 2013 (minus 5.1% against previous year). With it, they represent 3.5% of the sector’s overall exports. In the ranking of the export destination countries Russia is in the tenth place. From 2000 through 2013 German exports of electrical and electronic products to Russia have more than quadrupled – compared with a growth of overall exports of slightly less than 50% over the same period of time. The sub-sectors automation, medical engineering, appliances and energy technology made the biggest contributions to last year’s exports to Russia. In January 2014 the German E&E industry’s exports to Russia in amount of 305 million € failed their pre-year level by 20.4%. German imports of electrical and electronic products from Russia hardly play a role. In 2013 they amounted to 224 million €, corresponding to 0.2% of total imports. Even imports from the Ukraine (263 million €) are higher.
