While agri-food exports attained a similar value as in previous month, they increased by 4.6% compared to February 2019, reaching €15.1 billion. Imports went back to their downward trend and reached €9.8, although still above 0.7% above the level of February 2019.

Despite no clear impact yet by the coronavirus outbreak, growth of EU27 exports to China has been driven by exceptionally high exports of pig meat, infant food and offal meat. EU27 export values to Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Russia also increased. However, EU27 export values to the UK and to the U.S. decreased compared with February 2019. Regarding imports, there was, among other trends, a strong increase of imports of cocoa beans from Côte d'Ivoire. With the increasing export values and somewhat weaker growth in imports, the trade surplus for the 12-month period from March 2019 to February 2020 was 20% higher than in March 2018 - February 2019 and has reached €10.42 billion.

The monthly agri-food trade report for February 2020 is available online.