Germany: Mask imports for almost six billion euros in 2020 and mostly from China

In 2020, face masks worth around six billion euros were imported to Germany.

Wiesbaden - They were imported almost exclusively from China, announced the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) according to preliminary figures on Thursday. In April and May alone, masks worth 3.5 billion euros were imported from there. In June and July, more masks worth 1.4 billion euros from China were added.

This means that 80 percent of the imports of face masks in 2020 took place in the months of April to July. Because of the import of masks from China, imports in the category of textiles without clothing rose by 49.4 percent to 16.6 billion euros, in contrast to the sharp decline in total German imports. In 2019, German imports in this group of goods amounted to 11.1 billion euros.

In January 2021, 1.4 billion face masks worth € 186.7 million were imported, the statisticians added. 1.1 billion of these were filtering half masks for 166.7 million euros. 94 percent of these masks came from China.

Source: DerNewsticker

Photo: DPA