In 2016, over 7.3 million pairs of skis and individual snowboards were exported by the European Union's (EU) Member States. This is 3.3 million items less than ten years ago. Nearly 60% of these (4.3 million items) were traded within the EU.
Austria accounts for a third of EU Member States' exports of skis and snowboards
Across the EU Member States, Austria (2.5 million pairs of skis and snowboards exported in 2016, or 34% of the total EU Member States' exports) and the United Kingdom (slightly more than 1 million items, 14%) were the two main exporting Member States. They were followed at a distance by Germany (674 100 items, 9%), Bulgaria (605 200 items, 8%), France (590 000 items, 8%), the Czech Republic (561 700 items, 8%), Spain (454 400 items, 6%), Slovenia (344 300 items, 5%) and Italy (324 300 items, 4%).
EU's skis and snowboards mainly sent to the United States
When exporting to non-EU countries (3 million items in 2016), EU skis and snowboards were mainly sent to the United States (almost 1.4 million items, or 46% of the total extra-EU exports of skis and snowboards), ahead of Norway (321 000 items, 11%), Switzerland (294 100 items, 10%), Canada (240 100 items, 8%), Japan (202 000 items, 7%) and China (194 200 items, 6%).
Half of EU's imports of skis and snowboards come from Ukraine
In 2016, Member States also imported 1.5 million skis and snowboards from non-EU countries. Nearly half of these originated from Ukraine (731 400 items, 49%), followed by China (420 600 items, 28%) and Taiwan (129 200 items, 9%).
This news item marks International Mountain Day (11 December).
The source dataset can be found here.