Tracing Trade Interdependence between EU and East Asia

There have been two related trends shaping global trade during the past couple of decades: the increasing role of international supply chains and the rise of China. Increased complexity in global trade has generated a need to construct more processed trade data -- trade in value added -- in order to deepen our understanding of trade relations between countries. In this article, we present a broad picture of trade in value added between the EU28 and East Asian countries. We find that East Asia is important as a final demand and supply chain export destination, especially for Northern European countries, while for CEE countries it is more important as an import source for both final demand and supply chain trade. Trade with East Asia is least important for Southern European countries. The production structure of an EU country seems to be one of the main factors explaining the importance of supply chain trade with East Asian countries. The data also suggest that supply chain trade could support the growth of domestic value-added exports to the supply chain trade partner country as well as to other countries.