Revisiting foreign input exposure in the auto industry: Czechia meets China

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What is the input exposure of the automotive industry to foreign countries, including China? This paper revisits the traditional question from international economics with an updated input-output dataset spanning 1995–2020 and a new taxonomy for foreign production exposure. We summarise stylised facts on the development of the EU automotive supply and value chains, adding knowledge on trade in inputs. We find that the Czech auto industry’s total input exposure to China through gross trade flows in 2020 is 1.59 times higher than the directly observed exposure and reaches a 5.6% exposure level. The value-added input exposure also achieves a steadily growing trend in the observed period and the same significant acceleration within the last two observed years. Moreover, we show how Czech battery imports affect the trade balance with China and discuss the outlook for the Czech automotive industry with an almost non-existent domestic battery industry and its policy implications. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.