Another thing brought about by globalization and the ease of buying and selling between countries is specialization. Over the last few years, we have seen certain countries become highly specialized in a single industry and make that industry their own abroad. This specialization is what we can see in this Visual Capitalist map where we see the strong point of each country’s exports. The spoiler is that not much has changed in recent years.

There are some surprises, but it’s clear that cars dominate.

German dominated cars. If anyone is pulling the wagon, it’s Germany, almost literally. Automobile exports represent an extremely strong sector with a value of $149 billion. This is hardly surprising, considering that it owns some of the most powerful groups in the world, such as BMW, Mercedes, Audi or Porsche, as well as sub-brands of each of these groups.

It would be logical to think that France is another powerful country in this sense, but no, the second place on the list is Spain, which is more cautious but equally strong in automobile exports, worth $33.6 billion. The Spanish vehicle manufacturing industry is very strong and this is something reflected in the map. It will be interesting to know the data of all countries throughout 2023, as there has been a strong increase in automobile exports in Spain, reaching 44 billion 574 million euros.

In total, automobile imports from these countries are 257.2 billion dollars. Like other countries on the list, there are more countries that export this product, but it is not their main country and that is why they do not appear on the list. What does this mean? If we add cars produced by Italy or France to this, the market becomes even more important, but they already play a leading role in other exports.

Oil and gas not far behind. The second most important industry will be oil and gas. This is very important for countries such as the Netherlands, which has $68.1 billion in refined oil, and Belgium, which has $54.7 billion in natural gas. The rest is far away, but after all, it is a 169.5 billion dollar market.

As we said before, it increases if we add the exports of other countries. For example, Spain is a very important player in refined oil exports, with exports of refined oil worth 17.2 billion dollars. It would be at the top of the list, but as we said, we only see the value of the products that each country exports the most.

Medicines and vaccines. This is a vital sector for countries like Ireland and Italy. Firstly, it is the home of important pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer, and its exports amount to 47.3 billion dollars. Italy is another heavyweight country with its strong packaged pharmaceutical industry, which exports $34.4 billion.

Malta and Cyprus continue their business. Beyond the group of countries specializing in one sector, there are other countries that contribute to European exports. These are “small” amounts, but the one that stands out the most is of course France. The country specializes in aviation exports worth approximately $26.6 billion. It has a strong industry in both the civilian and military sectors, so it makes sense that aviation is its main asset abroad.

On the other hand, we have countries that export goods such as wood, electricity and iron worth between 1,100 and 1,600 million dollars; There are also examples from Malta and Cyprus with integrated circuits.

And where? These data correspond to 2022, so we will have to wait to see the full picture of 2023, but at that time the value of the European Union’s trade agreements exceeded two trillion euros (our trillions) for the first time.

This meant an average growth of 30%, and the main destinations outside the Union countries were the United States (20%), the United Kingdom (13%) and China (9%).

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