EU Trade – 7 Facts about EU Global Trade.
September 2013 by Aidan Conaty
I recently was gathering data for a presentation to prepare for the launch of Goodada’s European Inspection service when I became amazed at how big a player Europe is in international trade.
While China and the other BRIC countries are rightly grabbing all the positive headlines about their growth and trade stats, Europe is quietly going about growing its international trade.
You might say that there is a lot of bad press and that the PIGS, an anagram that I totally dislike, are dragging the EU down I will agree with you in some part however I will share with you some interesting facts that you may have forgotten in all the bad press.
Fact 1
With just 7% of the world’s population, the EU’s trade with the rest of the world accounts for around 20% of global exports and imports.
Fact 2
The EU was also the biggest exporter, accounting for 15.4% of all exports – compared with 13.4% for China and the 10.5% for the United States.
Fact 3
In 2011 EU-US trade climbed to $636 billion, a 14% rise on 2010.
Fact 4
China is now the EU’s 2nd trading partner behind the United States and the EU is China’s biggest trading partner
Fact 5
The transatlantic economy (North America and Europe) is the largest and wealthiest market in the world, accounting for over 54% of world GDP in terms of value and 40% in terms of purchasing power.
Fact 6
- US investment in the Netherlands from 2000 to 2010 was nine times more than US investment in China during the same period.
- US investment in the UK was more than seven times more,
- Ireland nearly three times more, than in China.
Fact 7
The EU remains the world’s largest global player accounting for 16.4% of all global imports
With these facts cementing my own observations, I have decided that now is as good time as any to prepare to launch Goodada’s European Quality Control Inspection Service.
The EU is a global player and while today it is getting bad press it is still a strong preforming trading bloc and with moves afoot to enhance EU-US trade ties in the near future it will become even stronger.
I also feel that the Euro is here to stay, I was in Dusseldorf during the week holding meetings with Goodada’s European Inspectors (more information will follow on this in later blogs). There were people from Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Ireland at this meeting. One of the inspectors needed change for the parking meter for his car and all these individuals were able to provide him with change that he wanted!