Brussels, 7 March 2023
The Commission has today published the latest monthly agri-food trade report, which shows that the monthly EU trade flows of agricultural and food products reached a new record value of €36.9 billion in November 2022. Since the beginning of 2022, EU agri-food trade reached a total of €369 billion, which represents a 23% increase compared to the same period in 2021 (Jan-Nov). This can be explained by an increase of the value of both EU agri-food exports and imports, by 17% and 34% respectively. In the same period, the EU trade balance stands at €53.5 billion.
Compared to October 2022, EU agri-food exports slightly increased compared to the previous month, to reach €21.2 billion, a 2% increase. From January to November 2022, EU agri-food exports reached €211 billion. When looking at specific sectors, the data confirm the higher EU exports of wheat from January to November 2022. The two main destinations for EU products are the United Kingdom and the United States. EU exports of pigmeat, cereals and vegetable oils to China decreased in the same period, while EU exports to Russia declined significantly both in quantity and value terms for a range of sectors.
EU imports of agriculture and food products remained quite stable in November 2022 compared with the previous month. However, due to higher food prices on the global markets, the value of EU imports increased and reached €157 billion in the 11 months of 2022. The three main origin countries exporting agri-food products to the EU are Brazil, the UK and Ukraine. The biggest increases over the year 2022 were recorded for imports of primary commodities, such as maize (+9 million tonnes), soya cake (+737 thousand tonnes), and rapeseed (+1.3 million tonnes).
The latest monthly agri-food trade report also features a special focus on the evolution of production and consumption of poultry and beef from 1961 to 2019 across Europe, Central Asia, Asia-Oceania, Africa and the Americas.
More insights as well as detailed tables are available in a news item online.
Source – EU Commission