Trade with China swells 4.82% in 2020 as Portugal exports 19.6% more

The value of total trade between China and Portugal last year swelled by 4.82% compared to the previous year, according to official data released by the former’s customs office.

The value of trade last year was 6.9 billion dollars (5.7 billion euros), according to data published last week on the portal of the Macau-based Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries – also known as Forum Macao – based on statistics from China’s national customs service.

In 2019, trade between China and Portugal totalled 6.6 billion euros.

Last year China imported 19.6% more by value from Portugal, at 2.8 billion dollars, but exported 3.1% less to Portugal, at 4.2 billion dollars, the figures show.

Trade between China and Portuguese-language countries last year totalled 145 billion dollars, down 2.98% on 2019.

Brazil remains the Portuguese-language country with the highest volume of trade with China, accounting for over 80% of the total, followed by Angola, Portugal, Mozambique, East Timor, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe.

China made the Macau Special Administrative Region its platform for economic and trade cooperation with Portuguese-language countries in 2003, the year it created Forum Macao. The body describes itself as “a multilateral, intergovernmental co-operation mechanism aimed at promoting economic and trade exchanges between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries, by using Macao as a connecting platform between those places.”