According to the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM) in the first quarter of 2007 Germany reduced its import surplus of information and telecommunication products by 34% to 2.5 billion Euros. In the previous quarter the surplus had been 3.8 billion Euros. The main reason for this development are decreasing imports of information and telecommunications technology which fell by 9.6% to 13.9 billion Euros in the first quarter of 2007. On the other side, exports of such technology fell by just 1.1% to 11.4 billion Euros.
Exports of information technology devices increased by 9% to 6.3 billion Euros in the first quarter and those of consumer electronics even by 24% to 2.4 billion Euros. The reason for the deficit in the export balance of information and telecommunications products is in the opinion of BITKOM less export of communication technology which includes among other things network technology for telephone networks and mobile phones. In this context the insolvency of the mobile phone manufacturing company BenQ made itself felt.
Over the whole period of 2006 exports of information and telecommunications technology rose by 5.5% to 46.6 billion Euros. Imports even increased by 10.7% to 58.3 billion Euros. Germany exported its high-tech products mainly to European countries. Biggest importers of German high-tech goods in the first quarter of 2007 were Great Britain, France and Italy. East Europe is becoming increasingly important. Exports to Russia alone increased by 20 percent to about 536 million Euros in the first quarter which places Russia in the sixth position in terms of most important buyers. At the top end of the list of most important buyers are China followed by Japan and Korea. 