Lombardy has a trade volume of around 56 billion euros with Germany.
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Rome The trade volume between Germany and Italy is at a new record high – despite all global challenges such as the Ukraine war and the energy crisis. Last year it was more than 168 billion euros, as the German-Italian Chamber of Commerce (AHK) in Milan announced on Thursday. This is an increase of around 18 percent compared to the previous year.
According to data from the Italian statistical office Istat, Italy exported goods worth 77.5 billion euros to Germany (an increase of 15.8 percent). Imports from Germany even grew by around 20 percent – and thus rose to 91 billion euros.
The largest and third-largest economies in Europe have been closely intertwined for decades. Whether in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, mechanical engineering or car production: hundreds of companies work across borders and are part of mutually dependent supply chains.
The AHK in Milan alone represents 1,700 German companies in Italy. They have a turnover of around 96 billion euros and employ 193,000 people.
According to the latest figures, Germany remains Italy’s most important trading partner – far ahead of France, the USA and China. Italy, on the other hand, is Germany’s sixth most important country in terms of foreign trade. The biggest growth drivers are above all the regions in northern Italy and the German federal states with a large industrial share such as Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia.
Baden-Württemberg is more important than Great Britain
On the German side, Baden-Württemberg particularly stands out, having overtaken Bavaria in trade with Italy. The volume of trade between the federal state in the southwest and Italy alone is almost as high as Italy’s entire foreign trade with Great Britain. The volume of trade between Bavaria and Italy is almost as high as Italy’s foreign trade with Austria.
In Italy, on the other hand, Lombardy, the region around the financial center of Milan, has the largest trading volume with Germany. With around 56 billion euros, it almost comes close to Germany’s foreign trade with the entire African continent.
Veneto, the region between Verona and Venice, has a higher trade volume with Germany than Germany does with Finland. The most important sectors in mutual trade in goods remain the steel industry, the chemical and pharmaceutical sector, mechanical engineering, the food industry and electrical engineering.
“The war in Ukraine did not harm the German-Italian partnership,” comments Jörg Buck, Managing Director of AHK Italy. The growth in bilateral relations is real and part of a trend “that began even before the pandemic and in a dimension of consolidated and structural relations”.
In 2021, the bilateral trade volume was 142.6 billion euros, which was also an all-time high. The trend has been clearly upwards for years: in 2015, bilateral foreign trade was still around 108 billion euros.
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