We ran some back-of-the-envelope calculations of our own and concluded that, for EU manufacturers of budget-friendly tyres (e.g., the Kormoran brand) to compete with China-made brands such as Sailun, the factory-gate price in the EU would need to be about €7 lower per tyre.
In 2024, China shipped 92 million tyres to the EU at an average FOB China price of €23.5 per tyre. After adding shipping and insurance costs, the EU tariff, and VAT, the final landed cost of each tyre is approximately €37.90. EUROSTAT recorded 87 million units imported.
See Notice of initiation of an anti-dumping proceeding concerning imports of new pneumatic tyres
Just ten players dominate global trade in services, accounting for over 60% of the global total. Unsurprisingly, their trade balances in services differ significantly.
In the first four months of 2025, China’s trade deficit in Intellectual Property services accounted for 16% of its total services trade deficit, up from just 11% during the same period a year earlier.
For the full year, we project a $35 billion deficit in IP services. To put this in perspective, China’s IP services deficit exceeds the value of all its electric car exports.
Mr. Trump didn’t yet have this data on his April 2 Liberation Day. Just imagine if he had.
China announced an anti-dumping investigation into pork imported from the EU on June 17, 2024. It is widely interpreted as retaliation for the European Commission’s decision to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The probe’s deadline is June 17, 2025, although it can be extended at China’s discretion.
So far, no visible effect. Pork meat exports to China were up 8% in volume and up 13% for pig by-products year-on-year in Q1.
Offal now accounts for 60% of pork export volume to China in Q1 2025, up from 45% in Q1 2023.
While China reports a 5% decline in total imports during the first four months of 2025, the drop in general trade imports is steeper — down 9% compared to the same period in 2024.
This sharper decline is partially offset by a 7% increase in processing trade with imported materials. These materials enter China duty- and VAT-free, provided the resulting finished products are fully re-exported.
Although China has recently emphasized the growing role of general trade, its share of total imports fell to 61% in January–April 2025, down from 64% a year earlier.
Boeing was impacted by geopolitical trade struggles, with airplane incidents adding to its difficulties.
While the freight index based on settled rates for lanes to the U.S. West Coast increased by 19% in the last week of May, the same index for Europe routes declined, approaching its original benchmark (1000).
Source Shanghai Shipping Exchange
Mutual trade has doubled over the past ten years.
However, note that EU imports from India have fully delinked from exports since COVID.
Three out of four EU companies in China reported that doing business became more difficult in 2024. Far from a fluke, this gloomy sentiment has persisted for four consecutive years.
In fact, as early as late 2017, EU companies in China were already detecting signs that the Chinese economy was faltering — well before COVID.
According to reports, China wants to improve the corporate governance of its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through new guidelines.
It’s a never-ending story. Almost ten years ago, essentially the same thing was said. In a 2016 directive on SOE reform, then-Premier Li Keqiang emphasized the need to build a modern enterprise system and establish sound corporate governance structures, advocating market-oriented reforms to enhance quality and efficiency by eliminating outdated capacity. Xi Jinping, however, interpreted SOEs as a buffer to contain risks.
Colombia’s government has applied to join the New Development Bank (NDB), more commonly known as the BRICS Bank. However, after checking the NDB’s official website, we found no mention of a formal request from Colombia. The media, nonetheless, reports that President Petro intends to purchase $512 million worth of shares in the bank.
President Petro is seeking funding to connect Colombia’s Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, arguing that it would place the country at the “heart” of trade between South America and Asia.
Since Petro emphasizes trade, here’s our forecast for China’s surplus with Colombia in 2025 — and it doesn’t quite align with his ambitions.
And it does so despite the DRC’s cobalt export ban, which has been in place since February 22 of this year. CMOC Group is a publicly listed company, but it is effectively controlled by entities closely tied to the Chinese state. Another major shareholder is CATL, the battery maker headquartered in Fujian.
Jorge Toledo, the EU Ambassador to China, recently said that China is ignoring how seriously the EU views Russia’s aggressive actions and that it is also ignoring repeated EU calls for China to respond. Despite many efforts by EU leaders and Member States to make Xi Jinping understand, he has not listened.
Most likely, he will not listen now, even though he continues to speak of EU–China relations as something that should illuminate the world
For three decades, 79% of Africa’s total exports to China originated from just ten resource-rich countries.
“The extractive nature of this relationship has been entrenched through resource-seeking foreign direct investments and replication of the so-called “Angola model”, which is characterized by infrastructure-for-resource barter deals and resource-backed loansacross several resource-rich African countries.”
So far in 2025 (January–April), China has almost doubled its exports to Angola, primarily consisting of machinery and floating drilling platforms.
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