It is almost impossible to look at a place in Spain and not find an object Made in China. The Asian giant built its economic success on cheap manufacturing for the whole world, and Spain is no exception. The country has a long history of trade deficits that have only widened in the last ten years, despite Spaniards doubling sales to China in the same period.
Thus, while in 2014, the trade balance with China showed a negative figure of 15,878 million euros, in 2024, provisional data raise it to 37,706 million euros, a 137% increase.
Despite the alarm bells ringing during the coronavirus pandemic due to the dependency on the Asian country for basic items such as masks, concerns about strategic autonomy have not slowed down the pace of purchases. Spain imported over 45,000 million euros in goods in 2024, according to provisional data from the Ministry of Commerce, the second-highest year in history, only behind 2022 and 126% more than in 2014. In fact, imports from China saw the highest increase in the last year, up 2.9% from the previous year.
On the other hand, Spanish exports reached nearly 7,500 million euros, more than double that of 2014, but still 1,000 million euros below the 8,600 million exported in 2021, the peak of the series.
The stagnation of exports to China has occurred in a context of tension due to tariffs on electric vehicles from this country, which almost left Spanish pork as a victim.
Every year, around 560,488 tons of pork travel halfway around the world to feed the Asian country, where pork is a staple in its diet. According to the industry association Interporc, the value of these sales is 1,223 million euros, more than 15% of total exports. In total, food is the second most exported category, with almost 1,900 million euros.
The other two flagship products that Spain exports are less known: chemicals, especially pharmaceuticals, are the top-selling category with 1,978 million euros in exports, while minerals rank third with 1,622 million euros, mainly due to copper purchases.
Conversely, Spain mainly buys office and telecommunications equipment (including almost all major electronic products), which alone reached nearly 7,000 million euros in imports in 2024, followed by other capital goods (6,790 million) and textile and clothing products, with acquisitions worth 5,325 million euros.
Now, with Sánchez's visit and new Chinese investments, another increase is promised. Among the announced mega-projects are the CATL and Stellantis battery factories in Aragon and the Chery factory in Catalonia, as well as Envision's promises to produce batteries in Extremadura and electrolyzers and hydrogen. These investments will create jobs but will also require machinery, and it is not difficult to know where they will be purchased.