EU Bike Market Shifts from Asia to Eastern Europe

LUXEMBOURG – The new anti-dumping duties for China and Vietnam that came into force July 14, 2005 in combination with the enlargement of the EU in 2004 with new member states from in particular Eastern Europe, has lead to a major shift on the European bike market. It halted the ever-growing import of bicycles from Asia as Europe is turning to Eastern Europe as a major supply base for bikes.

The shift from Asia towards Eastern Europe is best illustrated with two figures; a 18.4% growth in the import of bicycles from in particular the new member states contra a 4.8% drop in import from Asian countries. This is what happened in 2005 and indicated by the statistics from the EU customs data bureau Eurostat. It’s beyond any doubt that this trend will continue in the years to come and that Eastern Europe is developing into a production base for bikes.
Production and consumption in 2005 stayed at about the same level as in 2004 in the ‘old’ 15 EU member states. Such figures are not available for all new member states. Due to that lack there has always been doubts on the total bike market volume for the EU 25. However, a study by Bike Europe reveal that the future EU-25 market volume stands at 35 million bikes! More on this in Bike Europe’s special anniversary edition; publication date, December 13.