German goods in high demand

German exports rose by 5.6 percent in the final quarter of 2011 year-on-year, the National Statistics Office (Destatis) reported on Thursday. The goods shipped abroad in that period totaled 269 billion euros ($357 billion).

Exports to other European Union member states increased by 2.5 percent, reaching 155.5 billion euros. As a result of the debt crisis, exports to European countries not belonging to the struggling eurozone rose by 5.3 percent, while those to the 17 members of the euro area went up by only 1.1 percent.

The most important buyer of German goods within the EU was France, which ordered 25.7 billion worth of goods, followed by the Netherlands and Britain.

Market diversification

Exports to countries outside the European Union grew even more sharply in the final three months of 2011, showing a 10.3-percent increase, with the volume of exports reaching 113.4 billion euros.

Germany's most important trade partner outside the EU was once again the US, which received German goods worth 19.8 billion euros in the period, marking a 12-percent year-on-year rise. Exports to China went up by 11.5 percent, with the remaining three BRIC countries - Russia, India and Brazil, also taking in more German goods.

Q4 imports also rose considerably, compared with the final quarter of 2010. They increased 7.1 percent to total 228.9 billion euros. Germany ordered more goods from essentially all major regions of the world. However, imports from China dropped by 2.9 percent and were put at 20.7 billion euros.

hg/sgb (dpa, dapd)