Brussels, 09/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - In a report published at the end of January, Eurostat emphasises that the EU car industry employs fewer workers than the manufacturing industries in general terms, notably because of the opportunities for mechanisation and increase in capital intensity in many branches of this field. Eurostat also indicates that Germany is the Member State which contributed most to the total value added generated by the Community automobile industry in 2001. The Eurostat document is even more up to date than the Commissioner for Industry Günter Verheugen, who announced on 13 January the creation of “CARS 21”, a working group whose mission will be to draw up recommendations by the end of the year designed to improve the competitiveness of the European car industry at global level.
The data given by Eurostat indicates that the EU automobile industry's turnover exceeded 640 billion euros in 2001 - a figure of which almost 95.8% was generated by the EU 15 - and the value added reached almost 122 billion euros. With a turnover of more than 57 billion euros, Germany produced 47.1% of the Community car industry's value added, and together, Germany, France, the UK, Spain and Italy produced 84.1% of the total value added. In the same year; more than 2 million people worked in the car industry, of whom more than 40% were employed in Germany, 13% in France and 10% in the UK, as well as 4% in Hungary and the Czech Republic for the new Member States. Eurostat found an overall drop in the number of workers in the car industry across the EU since 1990, with the sole exception of in Germany, where the rise is largely due to the expansion of the car-part manufacturing sector in the new Länder of the former East Germany.
Eurostat also highlights the domination of the European car industry by very large-scale companies. Although the car industry comprised more than 17 200 companies in the EU in 2001, 50% of them involved in the car-part manufacturing sector, almost 66% of workers were concentrated in very large-scale companies with workforces of 1000 people or more, generally in production or assembly plants owned by the large constructors or parts-suppliers. These companies' share exceeded 80% in Germany. In Belgium, France and Sweden, these companies employed more than 60% of the car industry's total workforce.
Finally, Eurostat states that in 2003 the trade balance of the Community car industry was favourable, Germany being the highest performer with a trade surplus of 31%, ahead of the Czech Republic and Sweden (21% each). More than half of the vehicles imported into Community territory in 2003 came from Japan (52%), South Korea (17%) and Turkey (11%). With more than 17% of vehicles exported by the EU, the USA is the main market for Community exports, ahead of Switzerland (12%). Eurostat also mentions that although imports into the EU of vehicles from third countries have reached 21.3 billion euros, exports from the EU to third countries have risen to 32.9 billion euros.