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The value of the Eurozone’s imports in December was 36.7 percent greater than a year earlier, due largely to soaring energy costs and a surprising 53-percent uptick in imports from China, according to Eurostat, the region’s statistics agency.
Exports rose 14.1 percent in value during the month.
The lopsided figures sent the Eurozone’s trade deficit up to €9.7 billion in December, the largest gap since August 2008.
For all of 2021, the zone’s trade deficit was €248.9 billion, 36 percent higher than in 2020 when consumer spending shut down during the COVID War.
Last year, the Eurozone slightly increased its trade surplus with the U.K., indicating that Europe has benefited more, at least initially, from Britain’s Brexit.
Eurozone exports to Britain expanded 1.9 percent last year while imports from the U.K. fell 13.6 percent. The zone’s exports to Britain grew less than with any of its other trading partners; imports from the U.K. were down 13.6 percent, more than with any other partner.
Britain’s exports to Europe have been snarled in red tape since Brexit, as we reported in “U.K. Trade With Europe Tangled in Bureaucracy” (16 Feb 2021).
TREND FORECAST: As we have reported, Europe depends on Russia for 40 percent of its gas and a third of its crude oil. Now, with the West imposing embargoes on Russian oil, gas and other exports, inflation is likely to bite harder.