Dependence entails risk. Reliance on a single supplier or source for imports of a certain raw material or intermediate product makes supply chains vulnerable to disruptions and geopolitical tensions. About 12% of world trade is in product groups where a single country has a share of more than 50% of exports of that product. In about half of all cases, China is the dominant exporter, but not everywhere. This article looks at which countries dominate exports for certain raw materials, intermediate and finished goods.
Posts tagged as “China”
With shipments of Australian coal to China starting again after a two-year de-facto import ban, this article focuses on the trends and outlook relating to international coal flows. Japan, China, India and South Korea collectively account for over half of worldwide coal imports, while Australia, Indonesia, the Russian Federation and the United States account for three quarters of worldwide coal exports. In the last two years Australia has largely been able compensate for the loss of the Chinese market, which accounted for 26% of total coal exports in 2019. Changes in demand and production patterns are likely to affect overall flows as well as market shares between countries.
COVID-19 vaccine production has led to significant additional temporary global vaccine traffic. However, with countries such as Brazil, China or India growing their manufacturing base this could create new regular cross border flows. This article looks at global vaccine production and cross border vaccine flows in and out of China, India, the United States and the European Union, as well as emerging flows out of countries such as Brazil and Russia.
The value of Chinese exports increased by 7% in 2022, while imports grew only 2.5%. This follows growth of 30% in 2021. These numbers hide some very uneven performance on a province and trading partner level, which reflect changing Chinese trading patterns with key partners such as the US, but also economic weakness in Europe.
The overall expectation for trade in most large economies – the US, the European Union, Japan and even China - is for little growth or even declining volumes. The next year is likely to look very different to last year and the next three years very different to the last three years. Southeast Asia and South Asia are expected to show much stronger performance than Northeast Asia. This article discusses 2022 and 2023 import and export performance across Northeast, Southeast and South Asia.
China accounts for almost a quarter of the value of worldwide imports of manufactured goods. That is significantly more than any other country. Germany, by contrast, accounts for about 8%, the US 7% and Japan about 5%. The European Union and the United Kingdom account for about the same amount as China, but almost two thirds of this trade is between countries within the bloc. While China’s weight in the world economy has increased, this increase has been uneven and the dependence on China varies significantly across economies.
China is the primary source of cross border e-commerce worldwide, on average accounting for about one third of the origin of all purchases. Growth has stalled over the last three years, with high transportation costs and lack of capacity an impediment to growth.
Apparel and footwear accounts for about 9% of US airfreight imports and about 5% of US containerised imports by sea. China is the single largest market, but growth has come from Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Bangladesh. Air has a share of roughly 6% of the weight and 18% of the value of shipments, but subject to large fluctuations and differences between market.
China to Europe rail import and export volumes are down 10% and 56%, respectively, for the first 10 months of 2022. This follows several years of phenomenal growth, where both imports and exports into the 27 Members States of the European Union (EU) grew by 27% annually.