According to data released by the German Federal Statistical Office recently, after working days and seasonal adjustments, Germany’s merchandise exports in August this year increased by 2.4% from the previous month to 91.2 billion euros. This is the fourth consecutive month of growth. It has slowed down month-on-month, and it is still down 10.2% year-on-year; imports increased by 5.8% month-on-month to 78.5 billion euros, down 7.9% year-on-year. Compared with February 2020 before the implementation of anti-pandemic measures, German exports and imports in August also fell by 9.9% and 6.4%, respectively.

The German Federal Statistics Office pointed out that compared with the same period last year, Germany’s imports and exports with its main trading partners have been affected to varying degrees due to the pandemic. Among them, the most stable partner in trade is still China. In August 2020, German exports to China fell by only 1.1% compared with the same period last year, reaching 7.3 billion euros; imports were almost the same as the same period last year, reaching 9.4 billion euros, and China continued to remain the status as Germany’s largest source of imports. At the same time, the situation in Germany and other major trading countries in August was still not optimistic, with both imports and exports falling sharply.

 

On the whole, German exports and imports to EU member states fell by 7.0% and 5.4% year-on-year, respectively, and exports and imports to countries and regions outside the EU decreased by 13.6% and 10.5% year-on-year.