Big Changes in EU Bike Import

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Despite the fact that Thailand doesn’t benefit from a duty free export status for bicycles shipped to the European Union, it managed to more than double its export to Europe up to almost 1.5 million and promptly took over second position from China.

Eurostat customs statistics show that  the import of complete bicycles from countries outside Europe increased with more than 8% in 2007. Average value stagnated at € 80.53. In the top ten there were remarkable developments.

Thailand doubles export

Thailand is the country that managed to more than double its export to Europe up to almost 1.5 million units with which it took over second position from China. Quite remarkably, the average value of Thai export also rose with more than 50% to € 74.07. Thailand has taken over a large part of the Vietnamese production for the UK. Last year, Thailand sold almost 900,000 bikes there.
 
At the same time, Vietnam has completely disappeared from the top ten. Whereas production peaked in 2004 at 1.85 million units, export in 2007 did not even reach 30,000 units anymore. Cambodia has also taken advantage of the effects of anti-dumping duties against its neighbour. Last year, the country sold almost 370,000 bicycles in Europe. All in all, this was almost 15% less than in 2006.

Tunisia +218%

Another remarkable jump in the top ten was the Tunisian one: (duty free) import into Europe made a big leap (+218%). This was among other things the result of the Chinese, Italian, Tunisian joint venture MUI becoming fully operational. Consequently, Tunisia is now in 7th position.

Taiwan remains the unbeaten leader of the import ranking. Last year, imports rounded the cape of 3 million. Average value hardly changed: +1.1% to € 131.33. That is rather peculiar because Taiwanese manufacturers focus mainly on the middle and high end of the market.

At the same time, rumours that Chinese bicycles are being shipped through Taiwan persist. The stagnation of average value combined with the strong volume increase seems to corroborate the rumours. With that, imports from China dropped with almost 2.3%. The higher average value € 30.60 (+6.4%) is probably linked to the increase of the prices of raw material.