Data released by the German Federal Statistical Office on the 16th showed that bilateral trade between Germany and China in 2022 was €297.9 billion, making China Germany's most important trading partner for the seventh consecutive year.

　　According to the data, Germany's imports from China in 2022 amounted to 191.1 billion euros, an increase of 33.6 percent year-on-year, while Germany's exports to China amounted to 106.8 billion euros, an increase of 3.1 percent year-on-year.

　　In the past decades, China ranked 35th in 1980 and rose to 14th in 1990 in the ranking of Germany's most important sources of imports, and since 2015 China has been Germany's top importer of products.

　　The data also shows that last year Germany and the United States and Germany and the Netherlands ranked second and third in total bilateral trade, with 247.8 billion euros and 233.6 billion euros respectively.

　　The German Federal Statistical Office said in a statement on the 16th that Germany's trade surplus in 2022 was 79.7 billion euros, down to its lowest level since 2000, and compared to 175.3 billion euros in 2021, a drop of more than 50%, partly due to a sharp rise in energy import prices.