Portugal has fourth highest surplus in Africa-EU trade in goods

The EU is the third largest partner for trade in goods with Africa, coming right after Japan, and China, but ahead of South Korea and the United States, according to the Eurostat.

“Since 2015 there has been a trade in goods surplus with Africa and in 2017 the surplus was €18 billion. This was lower than the peak of €28 billion in 2016, due to an increase in imports from Africa – the first increase in imports from Africa to the EU since 2012”, the report shows.

The report published this Thursday showed that Africa-EU trade has been gaining relevance since 2015, the first year there was a surplus in trade in goods with the African continent.

Last year, the surplus in trade reached €18 billion in the EU.

23 EU countries registered a trade in goods surplus with the African region, with the highest two being Germany (€8.3bn) and France (€5.6bn), followed by Belgium (€3.3bn), and Portugal (€2.3bn).

In contrast with this, those presenting a trade in goods deficit were Greece (€130m), Slovenia (€134m), Italy (€1.1bn), the United Kingdom (€4.9bn) and Spain (€6.3bn).

The four largest exporters to Africa were also the largest importers of goods from Africa in 2017: Spain (€23.9bn), France (€21.1bn), Italy (€18.5bn) and Germany (€17.3bn). The highest shares of imports from Africa in total extra-EU imports were found in Spain (19 %), Portugal and France (both 13 %) and Italy (12 %).

Portugal is the EU 28 country with the highest share of exports to Africa in total extra-EU exports, at 30.6%, followed by Cyprus (23%) and Malta (18.6%).

Portugal is the EU 28 country with the highest share of exports to Africa in total extra-EU exports, at 30.6%, followed by Cyprus (23%) and Malta (18.6%).

The Eurostat also released My Country bubble chart, which interactively shows the performance of each country in each area of the economy, for those interested in further knowing the areas in which some EU countries perform better than others.

In 2016, the GDP at current prices of the EU-28 stood at more than €14.8 billion, whilst the figure for Africa was €2.3 billion. In comparison, the GDP for the United States was €16,795 billion, for China €10.1 billion and for Japan €4.5 billion. Other major economies were Brazil, India, Canada and the Russian Federation, with GDP between €1.1bn and EUR 2.1bn, all below the total GDP of Africa, according to the data released by the Eurostat on their 2018 Statistical Portrait of the European Union and the African Union.