Norway now exports significantly more to Germany than to any other country, including mainly gas. As the German-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce announced on Tuesday, citing Norway’s foreign trade balance, the Federal Republic imported goods worth around 726 billion crowns (almost 68 billion euros) from the Scandinavian country last year.
This corresponds to more than a doubling compared to the previous year. “Germany is now by far Norway’s number one export country,” wrote the Chamber of Commerce. Gas deliveries alone accounted for 621 billion crowns (58 billion euros).
Norway replaced Russia as the most important gas supplier for Germany last year. 33 percent of the gas imported by Germany in 2022 came from Norway, and 22 percent from Russia. The Federal Network Agency had recently announced this. In 2021, Russia still supplied 52 percent of the gas.
In total, Norway had exports worth around 2.6 trillion kroner (243 billion euros) in 2022, which corresponded to an increase of 87.2 percent compared to 2021, the figures showed. The statisticians identified the export of natural gas as the main reason for the enormous increase. Germany was followed by Great Britain, France and Belgium in terms of export value. The high gas prices even brought the Scandinavian country a record trade surplus last year.
According to the Norwegian statistics agency SSB, the value of imported goods was 1.0 trillion kronor in 2022. This gives Norway a trade surplus of almost 1.6 trillion kroner (147 billion euros) – almost three times the surplus in 2021.
