Press release No. 044 of 2 February 2023
Exports (calendar and seasonally adjusted exports of goods), December 2022
127.4 billion euros
-6.3% on the previous month
+5.9% on the same month a year earlier
2022
1,564.1 billion euros
+14.3% on the previous year
Imports (calendar and seasonally adjusted imports of goods), December 2022
117.4 billion euros
-6.1% on the previous month
+3.0% on the same month a year earlier
2022
1,488.1 billion euros
+24.3% on the previous year
Foreign trade balance (calendar and seasonally adjusted), December 2022
+10.0 billion euros
2022
+76.0 billion euros
WIESBADEN – In December 2022, German exports were down by 6.3% and imports by 6.1% on a calendar and seasonally adjusted basis compared with November 2022. Based on provisional data, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that exports increased by 5.9% and imports by 3.0% from December 2021. In 2022 as a whole, exports were up by 14.3% from the previous year after calendar and seasonal adjustment, while imports rose much more strongly by 24.3% on account of the sharply increased prices of energy exports mainly due to the war in Ukraine. In 2022, the calendar and seasonally adjusted export surplus thus declined for the fifth consecutive year.
Foreign trade results for December 2022
After calendar and seasonal adjustment, Germany exported goods to the value of 127.4 billion euros and imported goods to the value of 117.4 billion euros in December 2022. The foreign trade balance thus showed a surplus of 10.0 billion euros in December 2022. The calendar and seasonally adjusted surplus had been 10.9 billion euros in November 2022 and 6.3 billion euros in December 2021.
Trade with EU countries
On a calendar and seasonally adjusted basis, Germany exported goods to the value of 70.9 billion euros to the Member States of the European Union (EU), while it imported goods to the value of 58.7 billion euros from those countries in December 2022. Compared with November 2022, calendar and seasonally adjusted exports to the EU countries dropped by 4.0% and imports from those countries by 4.8%. The value of the goods exported to euro area countries totalled 49.8 billion euros (-3.2%) and the value of the goods imported from there was 39.9 billion euros (-4.9%). Goods to the value of 21.1 billion euros (-5.7%) were exported to EU countries not belonging to the euro area, while the value of the goods imported from those countries was 18.8 billion euros (-4.5%).
Trade with non-EU countries
Exports of goods to countries outside the EU (third countries) amounted to 56.5 billion euros in December 2022, while imports from those countries totalled 58.8 billion euros on a calendar and seasonally adjusted basis. Compared with November 2022, exports to third countries declined by 9.1% and imports from those countries by 7.4%.
Most German exports went to the United States in December 2022, with goods exports down 10.0% on November 2022 after seasonal and calendar adjustment. Exports to the United States thus dropped to 12.3 billion euros. Exports to the People's Republic of China decreased by 14.2% to 7.6 billion euros and exports to the United Kingdom fell by 24.3% to 5.6 billion euros.
Most imports came from the People's Republic of China in December 2022. Goods to the value of 13.5 billion euros were imported from there, which was a 14.0% decrease compared with the previous month, after calendar and seasonal adjustment. Imports from the United States were down 7.3% to 7.7 billion euros. Imports from the United Kingdom dropped by 6.6% to 2.9 billion euros in the same period.
Exports to the Russian Federation declined a calendar and seasonally adjusted 16.7% to 0.9 billion euros in December 2022 compared with November 2022 and dropped 59.8% from December 2021. Imports from Russia rose by 0.1% to 1.6 billion euros in December 2022 from November 2022.
Original foreign trade values (not adjusted for calendar or seasonal effects)
Germany exported goods to the value of 123.9 billion euros and imported goods to the value of 114.2 billion euros on a nominal basis (not adjusted for calendar or seasonal effects) in December 2022. Compared with December 2021, exports increased by 5.9% and imports by 3.2%. The unadjusted foreign trade balance showed a surplus of 9.7 billion euros in December 2022. In December 2021, the surplus had been 6.3 billion euros.
Foreign trade results (not adjusted for calendar or seasonal effects) for 2022
Germany exported goods to the value of 1,574.0 billion euros and imported goods to the value of 1,494.4 billion euros in 2022. Exports increased by 14.1% and imports by 24.1% compared with 2021. The foreign trade balance showed a surplus of 79.7 billion euros in 2022. That was the lowest surplus of the balance of exports and imports since 2000. In 2021, the surplus was 175.3 billion euros. This means that the export surplus in 2022 was down by more than half from the previous year.
Methodological notes:
The differing comparative periods must be taken into account in all press releases on short-term indicators. Short-term economic monitoring focuses on comparisons of seasonally and calendar adjusted figures with those of the previous month or previous quarter. These reflect short-term economic trends. Year-on-year comparisons enable long-term comparisons of levels and are not influenced by seasonal fluctuations or calendar effects. The results of month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparisons may differ considerably at present because of the Covid-19 crisis and the war in Ukraine.
The results in this press release are provisional data from monthly foreign trade statistics. As detailed results are not available yet at this early point in time it is not possible to provide information on the reasons for changes in foreign trade as a whole or in trade with individual countries or groups of countries.
To meet changed user needs, more importance has been attached to calendar and seasonally adjusted results in the press releases on foreign trade statistics since reference month January 2022. Many users intend to use foreign trade statistics for time series comparisons, for instance, to show how exports have developed compared with the previous month or the same month a year earlier. The informational value of such comparisons based on unadjusted values and the seasonal and calendar effects included in them is limited. Calendar and seasonal adjustment is designed to exclude these effects. The X13 JDemetra+ method is used for the calendar and seasonal adjustment of foreign trade data. Detailed explanations on this are included in the methodological paper “Saisonbereinigung im Außenhandel“ (only in german)“. The fact that adjusted values are always calculated ‘fictitious’ values is important in evaluating calendar and seasonally adjusted values. For this reason, a comparison between adjusted series and nominal series is not useful. The nominal values form the basis for the calculation of calendar and seasonally adjusted results.
More information:
More calendar and seasonally adjusted results of foreign trade statistics are available in the GENESIS-Online database (Tables 51000-0020 and 51000-0021). First detailed provisional results on a nominal basis by country of origin/country of destination and by chapter of the Commodity Classification for Foreign Trade Statistics are available for downloading.
Foreign trade results are available also in the Dashboard Germany (www.dashboard-deutschland.de) (only in german). This data portal of the Federal Statistical Office combines up-to-date indicators of official statistics and from other data providers on the topics of economy and finance as well as health and mobility. A tool also available there is the Economic Pulse Monitor (Pulsmesser für die Wirtschaft) (only in german). It can be used for real-time monitoring of the economic development.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the related sanctions have an impact on many parts of the economy and society. Relevant data and information are provided on a special webpage (only in german) (www.destatis.de/ukraine).
| Item | December 2022 | January to December 2022 | Percentage change from | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2022 | January to December 2021 | |||
| billion euro | % | |||
| Total exports | 127.4 | 1,564.1 | -6.3 | 14.3 |
| including: | ||||
| EU Member States | 70.9 | 855.8 | -4.0 | 14.5 |
| Euro-zone | 49.8 | 597.6 | -3.2 | 15.1 |
| Non-euro-zone | 21.1 | 258.2 | -5.7 | 13.1 |
| Third countries | 56.5 | 708.3 | -9.1 | 14.1 |
| including: | ||||
| Russian Federation | 0.9 | 14.9 | -16.7 | -43.7 |
| Total imports | 117.4 | 1,488.1 | -6.1 | 24.3 |
| including: | ||||
| EU Member States | 58.7 | 735.3 | -4.8 | 15.9 |
| Euro-zone | 39.9 | 506.1 | -4.9 | 16.1 |
| Non-euro-zone | 18.8 | 229.1 | -4.5 | 15.5 |
| Third countries | 58.8 | 752.8 | -7.4 | 33.7 |
| including: | ||||
| Russian Federation | 1.6 | 35.3 | 0.1 | 6.5 |
| Year | Month | Exports | Imports | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| calendar and seasonally adjusted value | original value | calendar and seasonally adjusted value | original value | ||||||
| value in billion euros | change on previous month in % | value in billion euros | change on the same month of the previous year in % | value in billion euros | change on previous month in % | value in billion euros | change on the same month of the previous year in % | ||
| 2021 | January | 110.0 | 2.2 | 98.9 | -7.3 | 87.8 | -3.3 | 84.3 | -9.4 |
| February | 110.1 | 0.0 | 107.9 | -1.1 | 92.7 | 5.6 | 89.9 | 1.1 | |
| March | 113.1 | 2.7 | 128.0 | 17.1 | 97.4 | 5.0 | 106.3 | 15.4 | |
| April | 112.6 | -0.4 | 112.7 | 48.4 | 96.3 | -1.1 | 96.6 | 33.7 | |
| May | 113.7 | 1.0 | 110.3 | 36.8 | 98.4 | 2.1 | 97.2 | 32.6 | |
| June | 112.9 | -0.7 | 119.0 | 24.0 | 99.7 | 1.3 | 102.8 | 27.5 | |
| July | 114.9 | 1.8 | 115.5 | 12.3 | 98.6 | -1.0 | 97.3 | 17.1 | |
| August | 112.6 | -2.0 | 104.5 | 14.5 | 99.1 | 0.5 | 93.3 | 17.6 | |
| September | 111.8 | -0.7 | 118.3 | 7.6 | 100.1 | 1.0 | 102.1 | 13.5 | |
| October | 117.0 | 4.6 | 121.4 | 8.2 | 104.7 | 4.7 | 108.9 | 17.7 | |
| November | 119.2 | 1.9 | 126.0 | 12.4 | 108.4 | 3.5 | 114.6 | 20.3 | |
| December | 120.3 | 0.9 | 117.0 | 15.6 | 113.9 | 5.1 | 110.7 | 28.6 | |
2022 | January | 120.3 | 0.0 | 111.7 | 12.9 | 108.2 | -5.0 | 106.3 | 26.1 |
| February | 127.0 | 5.6 | 124.5 | 15.4 | 116.3 | 7.5 | 112.4 | 25.1 | |
| March | 123.5 | -2.8 | 139.7 | 9.2 | 119.5 | 2.8 | 130.5 | 22.8 | |
| April | 128.5 | 4.1 | 124.2 | 10.3 | 124.2 | 3.9 | 121.9 | 26.1 | |
| May | 131.4 | 2.2 | 136.0 | 23.3 | 126.6 | 1.9 | 131.1 | 34.9 | |
| June | 133.3 | 1.5 | 136.1 | 14.4 | 127.4 | 0.6 | 128.6 | 25.1 | |
| July | 131.2 | -1.6 | 127.6 | 10.6 | 128.0 | 0.5 | 123.2 | 26.6 | |
| August | 135.2 | 3.1 | 128.8 | 23.2 | 134.4 | 5.0 | 128.8 | 38.1 | |
| September | 134.5 | -0.6 | 142.3 | 20.3 | 131.8 | -1.9 | 134.4 | 31.6 | |
| October | 135.8 | 1.0 | 135.6 | 11.7 | 129.1 | -2.0 | 130.6 | 19.9 | |
| November | 135.9 | 0.1 | 143.6 | 14.0 | 125.0 | -3.2 | 132.4 | 15.5 | |
| December | 127.4 | -6.3 | 123.9 | 5.9 | 117.4 | -6.1 | 114.2 | 3.2 | |
