Over the past three decades China has reached the pinnacle of global trade. In 1990, the country accounted for about 2% of world trade in goods. By 2012, this figure had jumped to 12%, according to research from the McKinsey Global Institute. This meteoric rise saw China surpass the US in terms of total goods traded globally in 2013, with the combined value of the country’s imports and exports reaching $4160bn, against $3880bn for the US, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.
China has been described as the ‘factory of the world’, in recognition of the volume of goods either assembled or produced and then exported from the country. More accurately, however, the term ‘mega-trader’, coined by researchers from the Peterson Institute, has come to define China’s status in the global economy. Based on this research, China’s role as a substantial over-trader, in which exports as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) come close to 50%, as well as its total export relative to world trade, are unparalleled by any country since the UK in the late 19th century.
