Germany is the most important trading partner for the Nordic region
The Nordic region’s trading with other countries has for the last twenty years continuously resulted in a trade surplus. Germany is the most important trading partner both in terms of export and import trade values.
The Nordic region’s trade values have increased during the last twenty years. As seen from figure 1 both the import to and the export from the Nordic region have increased, and the export has exceeded the import resulting in a trade surplus during all years. The trade surplus has decreased in more recent years, especially during the pandemic in 2020. However, probably due to the major decrease during 2020, the trade increased to all-time-high levels during 2021.
Source: Nordic statistics database. FOTR49: Foreign trade, 1000 euro by partner, flow, reporting country and time.
Figure 2 shows the values of import to and export from the Nordic region in 2021. Germany is the most important trading partner both in terms of export and import values. The Netherlands, China, Poland, Italy and Russia are also major trading partners in terms of both export and import. For all these mentioned trading partners to the Nordic region the trade resulted in a trade deficit, meaning that import values exceeded export values. As for the United Kingdom, the United States and France – also being major trading partners – the trade resulted in a trade surplus.
Source: Nordic statistics database. FOTR49: Foreign trade, 1000 euro by partner, flow, reporting country and time.
In terms of total trade value (import and export), the top-5 major increases as well as the top-5 decreases are shown in figure 3. In order to balance the probable trading effects during the pandemic, the summarised values from 2018 and 2019 are compared to the summarised values from 2020 and 2021. The blue circles represent a trade surplus for the Nordic region and the light red circles a trade deficit. It is notable that the total trade value between the Nordic region and China has increased the most while the total trade value between the Nordic region and UK and Russia, respectively, has decreased the most.
