China's foreign trade to surpass $3 trillion mark

[OhioChick]

Source: Economic Times of India

28 Oct, 2011, 02.59PM IST, IANS

BEIJING: China's foreign trade will surpass $3 trillion this year, accounting for 10.5 per cent of the world's total, a senior official said on Friday.

This year marked the 10th anniversary of China's entry to the World Trade Organization, and the country has grown to be the world's largest exporter and second largest importer, said Liu Mingkang, chief of China Banking Regulatory Commission, at a financial forum.

The country's ratio of trade surplus to its GDP is expected to fall to lower than 3 per cent this year from 7.5 per cent in 2007, Xinhua quoted Liu as saying.

Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/chinas-foreign-trade-to-surpass-3-trillion-mark/articleshow/10518341.cms

[JDPriestly]

1. China can no longer claim to be a "developing" country.

It is now a developed country.

It's grown up and should take on the responsibility of a grown-up, including setting strict environmental standards -- at least as strict as ours, or better yet, as strict as Germany's.

The U.S. is third (fourth if you do not count the European Union as a country) on a list comparing countries by the estimated amount of their exports in 2010.

Again, comparing separate European countries rather than the European Union as a whole, China is first with exports estimated at a value of $1,581,000,000,000.

Germany is second on that list -- ahead of the U.S. -- with exports estimated to be worth $1,303,000,000,000.

Germany is very concerned about our environment and carefully regulates everyone to protect that environment. China needs to step up to the plate. It has a huge economy. And considering China's questionable currency valuation methodology which means that its exports are valued in far fewer dollars than they would be worth in produced in the US or Germany, China is without question the leading economy in the world in terms of production.

[pampango]

2. You're right. I think you'd have to call it some middle-range country. Per capita GDP is $7,500

compared to our $45,000 and the EU's $32,000, so they've got a ways to go to be "developed". They are far enough above where they started ($250 per capita GDP in 1980) that they can afford to adopt environmental standards as strict as ours at the least.

Germany does out-export us with 1/4 of our population, higher manufacturing wages (strong unions) and stricter environmental standards. China can afford more rights for labor and stricter environmental laws.

[On the Road]

3. Actually, I'm Surprised China Doesn't Have More Foreign Trade

They have about 15% of the world's population but only 10-11% of international trade. I guess the proportion is a little depressed because of the value of the yuan.

I would also guess that trade for countries like Germany is high due to short-distance trade with other European countries and the value of the Euro.

[JDPriestly]

4. Based on my experience living in Germany and also studying some

of their law, I believe that Germany's economic success is due to a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages of apprenticeships in trades, respect for the work of tradesmen, cleanliness and organization in the workplace (probably due to the training of teenaged apprentices in good work habits), and Germany's legal protections for working people that require large companies to place ordinary employees on their board of directors, universal health care (top quality), an unemployment insurance system that provides incentives to employers to retain workers and many other similar programs.

We should try to learn from Germany.

I would like to mention that Germany has no oil and really not that many other natural resources. Further, many of its cities were bombed nearly to the ground in WWII.

A memory that is etched in my mind:

We spent a couple of years in small towns north of Munich, Germany. My oldest child was born while we lived there, and since I did not speak German very well, I could not get a job.

Every day, I took my baby for a walk in a baby carriage. We often passed a house where an elderly man was building a wall with cement blocks. He started with just a couple of blocks stacked on top of each other. Each day as I passed the wall, he steadily, methodically, slowly placed one block on the other, carefully, precisely, patiently. That is the spirit of the Germans -- steady, methodical, slow, careful, precise to the point of painstaking and, above all, patient. They are generous but in a cautious, quiet, methodical way. Their food is simple and very filling.

I had the impression that the French valued beauty, taste and a sense of luxury -- well made clothing, architecture, good food and wine -- more than anything. In contrast, my impression of the Germans was that they valued reliability, strength, quality, care -- sturdy furniture, high quality wool sweaters and jackets, strong, thick walls and filling food and beer. I'm overgeneralizing, but those are my impressions.

So, to my mind the explanation for Germany's success is in its culture of trade organizations and training that dates back long before the modern age, to its pro-labor laws which have prevented the development of a culture of us versus them within the workplace by assuring workers of fair treatment and employers about certainty regarding their obligations and to the patient, methodical, hard-working habits of the German people.