The preliminary Thuringian foreign trade figures for 2022 from the Federal Statistical Office had been eagerly awaited: they were finally released at the beginning of February. The newly published figures confirm record levels for Thuringian foreign trade once again. But how can this trend be explained?
According to the Thuringian State Office for Statistics, the record figures are still largely a result of the sharply increased import and export prices, with import prices rising even more sharply than export prices: On average in 2022, import prices were 26.3 percent higher than in the previous year; export prices, on the other hand, rose by only 14.6 percent. These figures must be taken into account when assessing the overall trend.
A special feature of Thuringia's foreign trade in 2022 is that, for the first time since 1999, the value of Thuringian imports exceeded the value of exports, by 2.2 percent. In the previous decade, Thuringian exports were on average more than 30 percent higher than imports.
Which target markets and product groups were primarily responsible for Thuringia's foreign trade development?
In the ranking of Thuringia's export markets, the USA, Poland, France, China, and Austria occupied the top five spots – the same top five markets as last year, but in a slightly different order. These markets together account for over 35 percent of Thuringia's total exports. Exports to the USA, once again Thuringia's most important export market, increased by 16 percent. The positive annual development was primarily driven by the relevant Thuringian export product groups of "machinery," "food and animal feed," and "metals.".
With an import volume of €4.95 billion, China was by far Thuringia's most important import market. Thus, over a quarter of Thuringia's imports originated from China. The very positive development in the value of Thuringia's total imports was largely driven by the most important Thuringian import category, "electrical equipment," whose imports increased by 157 percent.
