Trade in Goods and Services between the EU and the BRICs

This policy paper, prepared as part of the Background Study for the European Competitiveness Report 2009, analyses the external trade in goods and services between the EU and the BRICs. The paper starts with the analysis of the global position of the EU and the BRICs in world trade (using the IMF DOT and UN COMTRADE databases) and moves subsequently to a more detailed analysis of regional (individual EU countries' trade with the BRICs), commodity and industry-specific trade specialization patterns, using the Eurostat Comext database. The key features of services trade are addressed as well.