A million dollar question from our very own version of Trivial Pursuit: name one brand of cross country skis that are produced in Great Britain
Scratching your head? So do we
Yet it is Britain that tops the official Eurostat data as the EU top xc ski exporter. No kidding.
The United Kingdom had somehow managed to export a whopping 941.476 pairs of narrows skis in 2016.
Austria, the country of Fischer and Atomic, had only sent some 300.000 pairs
France, a birthplace of Salomon and Rossignol brands, is a distant third with 56.000 followed by Finland ( Karhu, Yoki, Peltonen) with 45.000
Italy ( SkiTrab) exported less than 5000. Even Portugal managed to export 25 pairs, while Croatia did 4 ( four) pairs
Britain’s phenomenal exporting prowess could only have one reasonable explanation – ski producers in the countries outside of the EU, namely Russia and China (and possibly Norway too) , are using it as transit point and/or run their business via the UK registered companies.
All in all, the EU exported about 28 million euros worth of cross country skis in 2016 while importing an equivalent of 12 million euros. Both figures sound very low. Accounting gimmicks?
Austria is the EU’s biggest importer of skis – something that makes sense, as Fischer’s biggest production facility is located in Ukraine.