Salient to Investors:

China surpassed the US to become the world’s biggest trading nation in 2012. Jim O’Neill at Goldman Sachs said China is becoming rapidly the most important bilateral trade partner for many countries – Germany may export twice as much to China by the end of the decade as it does to France. O’Neill said at the current pace, many European countries will be doing more individual trade with China than with bilateral partners in Europe by the end of the decade. O’Neill said China’s trade figures underscore the need to draw China further into the global financial and trading architecture that the US helped create.

Nicholas Lardy at the Peterson Institute for Intl Economics said Chinese imports have grown more rapidly than exports since 2007, so isn’t just an undervalued yuan fueling an export boom.

Eswar Prasad at Cornell said a significant portion of China’s trade involves importing raw materials and parts for finished products that are re-exported, an activity that provides only modest value added.

Economists recently expressed skepticism about China’s export data after an unexpected 14.1 percent export gain in December.

Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-09/china-passes-u-s-to-become-the-world-s-biggest-trading-nation.html

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