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USA and China continue to be the two main trade partner of the European Union in 2016, according to the latest data of Eurostat. The EU trade with the United States amounted to 610 billion EUR of the total trade in goods of the EU and China – 515 billion EUR.

The two countries surpass seriously the next major trading partners of the Union. Thirdly ranks Switzerland with 264 billion EUR (or 7.6%). Despite the sanctions that the EU imposed on Russia over the annexation of Crimea, the country still has a strong commercial partner, occupying fourth position with trade in goods of 191 billion EUR. Fifthly again ranks Turkey with 145 billion EUR.

According to Eurostat, however, the trends observed in recent years are very different for the leading EU trade partners. After significant and almost continuous decline until 2011, the US share in total trade of goods into the EU has begun to increase again, reaching nearly 18% stake last year. The share of China does almost tripled compared to 2000, rising from 5.5% to 14.9% in 2016. Because of sanctions against Russia, its share in total EU trade fell almost twice to 5.5% in 2016. Despite the lack of such measures against Japan but in its trade relations with the EU similar trend occurred from 2000 to 3.6% in 2016

As regards Switzerland and Turkey remained relatively stable during the period since 2000.

Most traded categories of goods last year were machinery, transport equipment and chemicals.

For most EU countries the main partner for exports in 2016 was another Member State. The exceptions are Germany, Ireland, Malta and the UK (the US is the first partner) and Lithuania (Russia). Germany was the main destination for exports of 16 Member States and among the top three in 22 EU countries.

From total exports for 4.85 trillion EUR in the European Union in 2016, 3.11 trillion EUR (64%) were directed to another Member State. The leader in this respect are Slovakia (85% of total exports in the EU), Czech Republic (84%) and Luxembourg (83%).

As for imports, the main partner for the import of goods in 2016 was another EU Member State for all countries except Lithuania, the main importer was Russia. As a whole, Germany is once again among the top three importing countries in all EU countries except Ireland and Malta.