EU trade surplus in medicinal and pharmaceutical products hit record high in 2024
In 2024, the European Union’s trade surplus in medicinal and pharmaceutical products came to a total of 193.6 billion euro, marking a record high, the bloc’s statistics agency Eurostat said on April 14.
In 2024, EU exports of medicinal and pharmaceutical products increased by 13.5 per cent compared with 2023, reaching 313.4 billion euro, Eurostat said.
At the same time, imports only recorded a modest increase of 0.5 per cent, amounting to 119.7 billion euro.
Eurostat said that in 2024, Germany was the EU’s largest extra-EU exporter of medicinal and pharmaceutical products (67.9 billion euro), followed by Ireland (56.6 billion euro) and Belgium (41.4 billion euro).
The largest extra-EU importers were Germany (23 billion euro), Belgium (21.3 billion euro) and the Netherlands (14.7 billion euro).
The main destination for extra-EU exports of medicinal and pharmaceutical products in 2024 was the United States (38.2 per cent of all exports outside the EU; 119.8 billion euro), followed by Switzerland (16.4 per cent; 51.3 billion euro) and the United Kingdom (5.8 per cent; 18.2 billion euro).
Most of the imports to the EU came from the US (38.3 per cent; 45.9 billion euro), Switzerland (32.6 per cent; 39.1 billion euro) and the UK (7.3 per cent; 8.7 billion euro).
