China has overtaken the US and become the European Union's largest trading partner

China has overtaken the US and become the European Union's largest trading partner

This year, China has overtaken the United States (US) and become the European Union's (EU) largest trading partner, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted trade with the United States, while China's activity has risen sharply. In the first nine months of 2020, EU-China trade totaled € 425.5 billion, while the value of EU-US trade reached € 412.5 billion. This was shown by data from the European statistical office Eurostat. To illustrate, for the same period last 2019, EU trade with China reached € 413.4 billion and with the United States € 461 billion. Eurostat said the EU saw a 4.5% increase in imports from China between January and September 2020, while exports remained unchanged. At the same time, imports from the USA decreased significantly during the period considered, by 11.4%, and exports from the EU to the United States also fell sharply, by 10%. The EU has been China's most important trading partner since 2004, when it overtook Japan. This year, however, for the first time, the opposite is also true. Chinese exports also supported the purchase of personal protective equipment. After the shock associated with COVID-19 in the first quarter, the Chinese economy rebounded from the bottom and grew year-on-year in the third quarter. And China is probably the only major economy to achieve economic growth this year.