Last year, China became the Union's largest trading partner

Last year, China overtook the United States and became the European Union's largest trading partner. Data from the European statistical office Eurostat showed this on Monday. Britain, which left the EU last year, was the bloc's third largest trading partner, after China and the United States, Eurostat said. China was hit hard by the new coronavirus pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, but recovered quickly and consumption at the end of 2020 even exceeded a year ago. This has helped increase sales of European products in the Asian country, especially cars and luxury goods, while Chinese exports to the EU have benefited from strong demand for medical equipment and electronics. The detachment of the US also comes because the EU and China are trying to ratify a long-negotiated investment agreement that would give European companies better access to the Chinese market. Eurostat reported that the EU's trade volume with China last year reached 586 billion euros, while in the case of the USA it was 555 billion euros. According to statistics, EU exports to China increased by 2.2% to € 202.5 billion last year, while imports from China rose by 5.6% to € 383.5 billion. At the same time, exports to the USA fell by 13.2% and imports from across the Atlantic by 8.2%. In addition to the crisis caused by the pandemic, transatlantic trade has been disrupted by a series of disputes and retaliatory tariffs on a range of products, from steel and French champagne to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. According to Eurostat, EU trade with the United Kingdom also fell sharply in 2020. Britain officially left the European bloc early last year, but there was a transitional period until the end of December 2020 to mitigate the impact of Brexit. Exports from the EU to the United Kingdom fell by 13.2% last year and imports fell by 13.9%, Eurostat said.