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China fourth largest trading nation – WTO
2002/05/03

Geneva – China's accession into the WTO and the global economic downturn have pushed the nation into the fourth position as global trading nation, the WTO said in a report disclosed on Thursday.

"Although China's trade expansion was curtailed by the weakness of its principal export markets, it still recorded an outstanding high growth for both imports and exports," the report says. China's trade now exceeds that of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, when Mexico is not included. The EU was seen as one entity.

China's export over 2001 was 266 billion US dollar, up 7 percent year-on-year, while its imports rose to 244 billion US dollar, up 8 percent year-on-year. "China's strong trade performance in 2001 was again outstanding in the region although it also weakened sharply in the course of 2001," the report says.

China's positive development contrasted sharply with that of other Asian countries, that were much harder hit by the global downturn. That global downturn was caused by bursting of the global IT-bubble, sluggish demand in Western Europe and – to a lesser degree according to the WTO – to the effects of the terrorist attacks on September 11 last year.

"The regions and countries with the strongest export decline in 2001 were those trading intensively in IT products — East Asia and the United States. Some of the East Asian traders that are highly dependent on IT products recorded an unprecedented export and output decline (e.g. Singapore, Chinese Taipei)," the WTO writes in a press release.

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