Exporte: Exklusive Zahlen: Handelsbilanzdefizit mit China steigt erstmals auf mehr als 100 Milliarden Euro

A new study from the German Economic Employers' Institute (IW) shows that Germany's trade deficit with China is set to surpass 100 billion Euros for the first time this year, a 90 billion Euro increase from 2019. The largest contributors to this growing deficit are the automotive, electrical, and machinery industries. Despite their energy-intensive nature, these sectors are not significantly offsetting the export decline to China.

The IW researcher, Jürgen Matthes, argues that hard countermeasures against Chinese competitive distortions should be a central part of the economic response to the "China Shock 2.0". The focus on these hardening trade policies against China is likely to intensify during the EU-China summit. China has been changing its business model by producing more than it can sell domestically, hoping to offset its weak domestic economy with a strong export economy.

However, China is accused of using unfair competitive advantages such as massive subsidies and artificial currency devaluation, which depresses export prices and puts pressure on the German industry. According to the BDI, up to 15,000 German industrial jobs are lost every month, and economists speak of a "China Shock". The IW numbers illustrate how drastically German-Chinese trade relations have reversed.

While Germany enjoyed a decade of steady export growth to China in the past, it is now exporting far more to China than Germany imports from China. By 2026, German exports to China are expected to be around 25% lower than in 2019, while imports from China are projected to increase by 62%. The trade deficit is expected to grow to more than seven times its 2019 value of 14.1 billion Euros.

The automotive industry contributes nearly one-quarter of the deficit, with a former strong German surplus of over 23 billion Euros in 2019 likely to be non-existent by 2026. The electrical industry accounts for almost a fifth of the deficit, with its 2019 figure of 4.8 billion Euros expected to reach over 24 billion Euros by 2026.

The machinery sector is also affected, with Germany projected to have a small deficit of nearly one billion Euros with China by the end of the year, after previously having a large export surplus of almost ten billion Euros. Trade imbalances are not unusual in global trade, and Germany has historically enjoyed a high balance of payments surplus.

However, the scale of these deficits and their rapid increase raise questions about the seriousness of this development.