(Yicai) April 3 -- China remained the European Union's largest car importer by value for the third consecutive year in 2024.

Chinese passenger cars worth EUR12.7 billion (USD13.9 billion) entered the EU market last year, according to data released by Eurostat on April 1. Japan ranked second at EUR12.3 billion, followed by the United Kingdom at EUR11 billion, Türkiye at EUR9.1 billion, and the United States at EUR8.4 billion.

China became the EU's biggest car importer by value in 2022, when the figure was EUR9.4 billion. That jumped to EUR12.9 billion in 2023.

“From 2019 to 2024, the EU experienced the most significant rise in car imports from China, with an increase of 1,591 percent," Eurostat noted. “Imports from the UK saw the largest decline, falling 17 percent."

Last October, the EU levied additional import tariffs on China-made electric vehicles after a nine-month anti-subsidy investigation. For example, an additional import tax of 17 percent was levied on vehicles produced by BYD, 18.8 percent on Geely Automobile’s, 35.3 percent on SAIC Motor’s, and 7.8 percent on Tesla’s China-manufactured cars.

Eurostat’s data also shows a notable shift in EU-China auto trade dynamics. Previously, the EU held a dominant position in car exports to China, accounting for more than half of China's car imports by value as recently as 2021. But EU auto exports to China have since fallen, shrinking by a cumulative 22 percent to EUR14.5 billion in the past six years.

China's car exports climbed 19 percent to 5.86 million last year from 2023, making the country the world's largest auto exporter, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. But the growth rate slowed from 101 percent in 2023, 54 percent in 2022, and 58 percent in 2021.

Editor: Futura Costaglione