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BRUSSELS, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Agri-food across the European Union (EU) hit a record high in 2016 with the biggest increases reported to the United States and China, official data showed Thursday.
The annual value of the bloc's agri-food last year stood at 130.7 billion euros (138 billion U.S. dollars), up 1.7 billion euros on 2015, said the European Commission, the EU's executive body, which monitors trade development.
The biggest increases in annual exports were to the United States and China, up 1.26 billion euros and 1.06 billion euros respectively, the Commission said.
At the same time, the value of EU agri-food imports went down 1.5 percent to 112 billion euros, leading to an increase of the EU agri-food trade surplus to 18.8 billion euros, up from 15.3 billion euros in 2015, data showed.
The agri-food sector accounted for 7.5 percent of total EU exports in goods in 2016 and 6.6 percent of all imported goods were agri-food products, said the Commission. Enditem
