International trade insporting goods Statistics Explained

Source : Statistics Explained (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/) - 02/12/2021 1

Data extracted in January 2021.Planned article update: January 2022.

This article presents some characteristics of the European Union’s (EU) international trade in sporting goods. Itconsiders the share of EU-27 in world import and export markets, intra-EU-27 and extra-EU-27 trade, the EU-27’smost widely traded sporting goods categories and the EU-27’s main trading partners.

The figures presented for the entire European Union (EU-27) exclude intra-EU-27 trade. In other words, the EU-27as a whole is deemed to be one entity for which internal exchanges (between the Member States) are not counted.In turn, the EU-27 Member States data refers to trade with any other country, whether an EU-27 Member State ornot.

The value of extra-EU-27 trade in sporting goods in 2019

In 2019, the EU-27’s trade in sporting goods (the sum of extra-EU-27 exports and imports) with the rest of the worldwas valued at EUR 25.1 billion (EUR 11.7 billion of exports and EUR 13.3 billion of imports, see Table 1). Bothimports and exports have significantly increased compared with 2014: in relative terms, exports recorded a highergrowth than imports (+67.8 % against +53.8 %), corresponding to an increase by EUR 4.74 billion for exports againstEUR 4.66 billion for imports. Looking at the overall numbers, the EU-27’s trade deficit in sporting goods slightly de-creased by around EUR 0.081 billion (= EUR 81 million), from EUR 1.66 billion in 2014 to EUR 1.58 billion in 2019.

The largest relative increase in sporting goods exports occurred in the ’sports footwear’ category, which almostdoubled its value, followed by ’boats and water sport equipment’ category (which had the highest absolute increase).The largest export decrease was recorded in the ’Racket sports equipment’ category, which had lost around 10 % ofits value, followed by ’golf equipment’ category with a 9 % decrease from 2014 to 2019.

Regarding imports of sporting goods, the ’boats and water sport equipment’ category had both the highest rel-ative and absolute increase, growing in five years by 1.9 billion (97 % of 2014 value). As for exports, the othersignificant increase was recorded for ’sports footwear’ with a 72 % growth from 2014 to 2019. ’Skates’ was the onlycategory recording a decrease (-12 %) in imports between 2014 and 2019.

Table 1: Extra-EU-27 trade in sporting goods, EU-27, 2014 and 2019 Source: Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

At national level , in 2019, a trade surplus (concerning intra- and extra-EU-27 trade) was recorded in 11 MemberStates and a trade deficit in 16 Member States (see Table 2). The largest trade surplus in absolute terms, with EUR2.4 billion, belonged to Italy. The value of Italian sporting goods exports was twice as high as imports and it mainlyaccounted on exports of boats and water sport equipment (half of total sporting exports, see also Table 3). Bulgariarecorded the highest cover ratio (= exports/imports), with exports 2.8 times as high as imports. In addition to Bulgariaand Italy, other Member States with high cover ratios were Lithuania (1.6), Belgium (1.6) and Romania (1.5). Bulgariaand Lithuania based their exports mainly on bicycles (45.9 % and 44.1 % of the total values of exported sportinggoods, respectively). Belgium mainly exported sports footwear (76.6 %) and Romania skis and related equipment(42.7 %). On the other hand, France, Spain and Malta recorded the largest deficits of trade in sporting goods (overEUR 1 billion in each country).

In 2019, the Netherlands was the EU-27’s largest exporter of sporting goods in term of value with exports aboveEUR 5.3 billion, followed by Italy (EUR 4.7 billion), Germany (EUR 4.6 billion) and Belgium (EUR 3.7 billion). Thelargest importers were Germany (EUR 5.4 billion), the Netherlands (EUR 4.5 billion) and France (EUR 4.0 billion).The high ranking of medium-size countries like the Netherlands and Belgium is due to the impact of quasi-transit ofgoods, the so-called ’Rotterdam effect’, affecting Member States with big ports at the external border of the Euro-pean Union (for more details, please see the Methodology/Metadata section).

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Table 2: International trade in sporting goods, 2014 and 2019 Source: Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

International trade in sporting goods between 2014 and 2019

Looking at the EU-27 international trade in sporting goods between 2014 and 2019 (see Figure 1), there has been asteady increase in absolute terms, with a sensible acceleration in 2019 both for imports (EUR +1.9 billion comparedto 2018) and for exports (EUR +0.8 billion). Referring to relative terms, the imports of sporting goods as a share oftotal imports increased from 2014 to 2016, followed by a slight decrease both in 2017 and 2018, and a new peak in2019. After a bigger increase in 2015, the growth in the share in exports was less pronounced till 2019.

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Figure 1: Extra-EU-27 trade in sporting goods, EU-27, 2014–19 (% of total extra-EU-27 trade and billion EUR)Source: Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

Between 2014 and 2019, the annual average growth rate of the value of the EU-27 international trade in sportinggoods (excluding intra-EU-27 trade) was 10.9 % for exports and 9.0 % for imports. The picture at EU-27 MemberState level (including also intra-EU-27 trade) is more nuanced.

The average annual rate of change for exports of sporting goods (including also intra-EU-27 trade) was positivein 22 of the EU-27 Member States, among which three registered average annual growth rates of over 20 %: Lux-embourg, the Netherlands and Poland (see Figure 2). On the other hand, slight drops were recorded in Ireland (-1.6 %), Hungary (- 1.4 %) and Denmark (- 0.2 %), while Malta (- 5.2 %) and particularly Cyprus (- 32.7 %) had asignificant decrease. It should be noted, for the last two mentioned countries, a high dependence on the categoryrelated to boats and water sports equipment (92.1 % of total sporting exports for Malta and 77.2 % for Cyprus, seeTable 3): This pattern, combined with relatively small volumes of sporting trade, can lead to significant fluctuationsfor rates of change from one year to another.

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Figure 2: Average annual growth rate of exports of sporting goods, 2014–19 (%) Source: Eurostat(sprt_trd_prd)

Regarding imports over the same period, 26 of the EU-27 Member States saw an increase, with the only exceptionof Cyprus (-17.7 %). Romania was the only EU-27 Member State where imports increased in average by over 20 %yearly: in Poland, the Netherlands, Malta and Slovenia the average annual growth rate of imports passed the 15 %threshold, while in additional ten Member States it exceeded 10 % (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Annual average rate of change for the import of sporting goods, 2014-2019 (%) Source: Eurostat(sprt_trd_prd)

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Extra-EU-27 and intra-EU-27 trade in sporting goods

The international trade of EU-27 Member States can be analysed from two perspectives: intra-EU-27 trade (betweenEU-27 Member States) and extra-EU-27 trade (with non-EU-27 countries). The ratio between the two is an indicationof the heterogeneity of a country’s trade patterns and, to some extent, may reflect historical ties and geographicallocation.

Looking at exports in 2019, almost three fifths of the EU-27’s total trade in sporting goods was intra-EU-27 (59.4%). At country level, intra-EU-27 trade accounted for the majority of exports in 21 of the EU-27 Member States: thefigures ranged from 54.5 % in Sweden to 94.3 % in Romania (see Figure 4). By contrast, six countries recordedmore exports outside the EU-27 than to the intra-EU-27 market, with the largest shares recorded in Malta (97.3 %)and Ireland (77.8 %), followed by the Netherlands (62.0 %), Finland (58.6 %), Italy (56.6 %) and Cyprus (54.6 %)(see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Share of extra-EU-27 and intra-EU-27 trade within all exports of sporting goods, 2019 (%) Source:Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

For the EU-27 as a whole, intra-EU-27 imports accounted for 54.9 % of international trade in sporting goods. Look-ing at individual countries, in 23 of 27 EU Member States the value of intra-EU-27 imports of sporting goods wasgreater than the value of extra-EU-27 imports. Intra-EU-27 imports shares for these countries varied from 56.4 % inGermany to 89.9 % in Slovakia. Four EU-27 Member States imported more sporting goods from outside the EU-27than from inside (see Figure 5): the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and, with a share over 90 %, Malta.

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Figure 5: Share of extra-EU-27 and intra-EU-27 trade within all imports of sporting goods, 2019 (%) Source:Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

Main product groups

The list of sporting goods that are traded internationally contains the equipment necessary for doing sports (e.g. skisor balls), clothing (e.g. swimwear or footwear) and some articles that can be used for sport and leisure activities (e.g.boats and water sports equipment, bicycles or fishing equipment).

The main three groups of sporting goods, among those analysed here, are ’boats and water sport equipment’,’sports footwear’ and ’gymnastic, athletic and swimming equipment’. In 2019, they generated 82.3 % of the valueof extra-EU exports , with boats and water sport equipment (including vessels for pleasure and sport, sailboats,sailboards or water sport boats or boards) accounting for 57.2 % of the total value (see Figure 6). Sports footwear(13.7 %) and gymnastic, athletic and swimming equipment (11.4 %) were the only other two categories of analysedsporting goods with a 2-digit share in the extra-EU-27 export in 2019. It is worth noting that boats and water sportequipment, as well as sports footwear, were the only groups of products where the shares of extra-EU-27 exportincreased from 2014 to 2019.

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Figure 6: Extra-EU-27 exports of sporting goods, by product, EU-27, 2014 and 2019 (% of EU-27 total) Source:Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

For extra-EU-27 imports , the picture in 2019 was similar, with boats and water sport equipment still as the maincontributor (29.3 %), ahead of sports footwear (25.9 %) and gymnastic, athletic and swimming equipment (18.3 %).None of the other categories exceeded 10 % of value of extra-EU-27 imports of sporting goods. Since 2014, onlyboats and water sport equipment, as well as sports footwear have increased their share among analysed group ofproducts in 2019, with a significant growth of 6.4 percentage points for boats and water sport equipment (see Figure7).

Figure 7: Extra-EU-27 imports of sporting goods, by product, EU-27, 2014 and 2019 (% of EU-27 total) Source:Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

At national level, in 2019, boats and water sport equipment reached more than half of the value of exports of sport-

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ing goods in Malta, Cyprus, Finland, the Netherlands and Italy, and also accounted for the largest share of sportingproducts in France, Greece, Poland and Slovenia.

Sports footwear was the main group of sporting products exported by Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany. Witha share close to a half, gymnastic, athletic and swimming equipment was the main export contributor for Hungaryand Slovakia. This group of products was the main export group also Czechia, Sweden, Latvia, Spain, Denmarkand Ireland. Skis and related equipment was the main category in sporting goods exports for Austria and Romania;bicycles for Portugal, Bulgaria and Lithuania; sportswear for Croatia; and fishing equipment for Estonia (see Table3).

Table 3: Exports of sporting goods by group of products, 2019 Source: Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

Among the individual EU Member States, in 2019, sports footwear was the main import category in 18 EU-27 Mem-ber States, peaking in Belgium with more than half of total sporting goods imports (55.9 %). The largest share ofimports of boats and water sport equipment was recorded in Malta, where it accounted almost for the total of sport-ing imports (99.2 %); this share was over a half also in Cyprus (58.2 %) and Croatia (53.4 %), and it was also theprimary category for the Netherlands and Slovenia.

Of the remaining categories, gymnastic, athletic and swimming equipment was the primary category in import ofFinland, Lithuania and Czechia, while skis and related equipment was the main import contributor for Austria (seeTable 4).

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Table 4: Imports of sporting goods by group of products, 2019 Source: Eurostat (sprt_trd_prd)

Main trading partners

When considering the aggregate of the trade of all Member States, the single European market remains the majorexport destination and source of imports for sporting goods (see Figure 4 and Figure 5).

In 2019, the most common destination for sporting goods exported from the EU-27 ( export extra-EU-27 ) werethe Cayman Islands (19.6 %), the United Kingdom (15.8 %) and United States (15.4 %) - more than half of sportinggoods exports went to these three countries (see Figure 8). All exports of sporting goods to the Cayman Islandswere basically reduced to the ’boats and water sport equipment’ category. A significant percentage of this type ofgoods (mainly luxury yachts) was also exported to the United States, accounting for more than half of exports ofsporting goods to this destination, while the exports to the UK involved mainly sports footwear. The Cayman Islands’share for exports of EU-27 sporting goods was in 2019 almost two and a half times its share in 2014, increasing from7.9 % to 19.6 %, while the United Kingdom share fell by 1.6 percentage points and the United States increased by1.9 percentge points.

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Figure 8: Top 10 main partners for extra-EU-27 exports of sporting goods, EU-27, 2014 and 2019 (%) Source:Eurostat (sprt_trd_prt)

Figure 9 shows the ten main EU-27 partners for imports of sporting goods. In 2019, almost one third of sportinggoods were imported into the European Union from China (29.7 %), 16.6 % from the United Kingdom and 11.8 %from Vietnam - these three countries accounted for more than an half of the total EU imports for sporting goods.The share for China was lower in 2019 than in 2014 (29.7 % compared with 36.1 %), while the share of the UnitedKingdom grew by 7.1 percentage points (from 9.5 % in 2014 to 16.6 % in 2019) and Vietnam also registered a growth(from 8.0 % to 11.8 %).

In 2019, ’articles and equipment for general physical exercise’ was a main category of sporting goods importedfrom China and ’boats and water sport equipment’ the predominant one from the United Kingdom. Sports footwearcovered almost 90 % of all sporting goods imported from Vietnam.

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Figure 9: Top 10 main partners for extra-EU-27 imports of sporting goods, EU-27, 2014 and 2019 (%) Source:Eurostat (sprt_trd_prt)

Source data for tables and graphs

• International trade in sporting goods: tables and figures

Data sources

The identification of the list of sporting goods is based on the Vilnius Definition of sport , the Study on the Contri-bution of Sport to Economic Growth and Employment in the EU and the UNESCO Framework for Culture statistics(which considers sport as a domain related to culture).

International trade statistics are stored in COMEXT , Eurostat’s database of international trade in goods. COMEXTcontains statistics on goods traded between Member States (intra-EU trade) and goods traded by Member Stateswith non-EU countries (extra-EU trade). The trade values for other political or geographical entities, such as the Eu-ropean Free Trade Association and candidate countries are also collected. The COMEXT database is built aroundsix main dimensions: • reporter (country declaring commercial transactions);• partner (trade partners of the declaring country — all countries of the world);• flow (exports and imports);• product (items by HS , CN or SITC , BEC and CPA depending on the dataset);• time (annual and monthly data);• type of indicator (the value or quantity of traded products).

Based on the number of dimensions available in COMEXT database, the following indicators are compiled for im-ports and exports of sporting goods: • value of trade in thousands of euros (THS_EUR);• percentage of country’s total trade (PC_TOT);• percentage of total EU-27 trade (PC_EU27_2020);• percentage of total EU-28 trade, European Union from 2013 to 2020 (PC_EU28);• percentage of total sport trade — at country and EU level (PC).

The data are compiled for the following trade partners: • intra-EU;• extra-EU;

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• intra-EU28 (European Union from 2013 to 2020);• extra-EU28 (European Union from 2013 to 2020);• world (intra-EU and extra-EU);• main extra-EU trading partners.

Methodology

Internationally traded sports-related items are selected using the Harmonized System (HS) classification. Theyare then aggregated into meaningful groups according to sporting disciplines or specific sports equipment and ac-cessories.

The groups of products (covered by HS six-digit codes) are the following: skis and related equipment; skates;boats and water sport equipment; golf equipment; racket sports (tennis and badminton) equipment; balls; gymnas-tic, athletic and swimming equipment; fishing equipment; bicycles; parachutes; sportswear; footwear; and sportingshotguns. For a detailed list of aggregates of sport products, see the metadata on trade in sporting goods.

Due to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, this country is considered as an extra-EU-27 partner for the EU-27 for the whole period covered by this article.

The impact of quasi-transit or the so-called ’Rotterdam effect’

Trade flows of the EU Member States may be overvalued because of the quasi-transit trade. However, the tradebalance of the concerned Member State is not impacted, as the quasi-transit should increase by the same amountas the intra- and extra-EU trade flows (extra-EU imports followed by dispatches to the Member State of actual des-tination or arrivals from the Member State of actual export followed by extra-EU exports to the country of actualdestination). The quasi-transit is known to affect mostly the Member States with big ports at the external border tothe European Union and in particular the Netherlands. This is why its impact on figures is known as the ’Rotterdameffect’. In case of imports, the goods destined to other EU Member States arriving in Dutch ports are recorded, ac-cording to Community rules, as extra-EU imports by the Netherlands (the country where goods are released for freecirculation) and as dispatches from the Netherlands to the Member States of actual destination, even though thereis no link with economy of the Netherlands. The quasi-transit is known to influence more the imports but exports arealso affected. In exceptional cases, the customs clearance occurs not in the actual Member State of export but inthe Member State of exit, i.e. in the Member State from which the goods are taken out of the EU customs territory.

Context

The multiannual work programmes ( EU Work Plan for Sport for 2014–2017 ; EU Work Plan for Sport 2017–2020; EU Work Plan for Sport 2021–2024 ) represent a tangible example of the importance that sport has gained inEuropean policy initiatives. These programmes, agreed by the Council, set the priorities and the principles for coop-eration between the European Commission and Member States in the field of sport.

Sport and its spillover effects in manufacturing, services and international trade are having a growing impact onthe world’s economies and societies. Comparable statistics — such as those on the number of jobs created in sport-related sectors or on the contribution of international trade in sporting goods to total international trade — provideindicators that can assess the relative contribution of sport in the economy.

Other articles

• Employment in sport

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• Manufacturing of sporting goods

• Statistics on sport participation

• Government expenditure on recreational and sporting services

• Culture (all Statistics Explained articles on culture)

Publications

• Leaflet on sport statistics — 2018 edition

• The economic dimension of sport

Database

• International trade in sporting goods (sprt_trd) , see:

Intra and extra-EU trade in sporting goods by product (sprt_trd_prd)

Intra and extra-EU trade in sporting goods by product and partner (sprt_trd_prt)

Dedicated section

• Sport

Methodology

For a detailed list of aggregates of sport products, see the metadata on trade in sporting goods.

• International trade in sporting goods (sprt_trd) (ESMS metadata file — sprt_trd)

• International trade in goods (ESMS metadata file — ext_go_agg_esms)

• Vilnius definition of sport

Legislation

• Resolution of 21 May 2014 of the Council and the Representatives of the Member State Governments, meetingwithin the Council, on the EU Work Plan for Sport (2014–2017) (2014/C 183/03)

• Summaries of EU Legislation: Sport’s role in promoting growth, jobs, social inclusion and health

• Preparing for life — How the European Commission supported education, youth, culture and sport (2010–2014)

• EU Work plan for Sport for 2017–2020

• EU Work plan for Sport for 2021–2024

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