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WTO: China outpaces US in exports

(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-13 19:08

Since 2000, China has more than doubled its share in world merchandise exports to 8 percent. Those figures do not include the goods sold abroad byHong Kongproducers because the "special administrative region" entered the WTO as a separate member in 1995 while still under British rule.

Overall real goods trade throughout the world achieved 8 percent growth in 2006, the highest in six years, the report said. High prices for fuels and metals meant the trade expansion was 15 percent when measured in monetary terms, reaching US$11.76 trillion.

"The strong performance in 2006 is welcome, particularly the gains made by developing and least-developed countries," WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said.

The world's poorest countries boosted their trade by about 30 percent, fueled by sales of petroleum and other basic commodities. Developing nations as a whole increased their share of global goods trade to a record 36 percent.

Europe recorded its strongest growth in merchandise exports since 2000, but continued to lag behind the global rate of expansion, the report said. Even as its trade deficit soared, the US recorded its best export growth in more than a decade.

Africa's goods exports rose 21 percent to give the continent its highest share of global trade since 1990, but most of the growth was due to increased oil sales, the WTO said. Latin America's commercial expansion decelerated slightly, while Asia remained the most buoyant of all regions for exports.

For 2007, the WTO predicted that a slowdown in global economic growth to 3 percent could also keep real goods trade growth to about 6 percent. Risks facing financial and property markets, and the large trade imbalances in goods and services have raised the level of uncertainty for this year and the likelihood of weaker trade expansion, WTO economists said.

Lamy said the current round of global free trade talks, which have stumbled through nearly six years, could help stabilize the global trading system.

"The uncertainties that lie ahead are a warning for us not to lose sight of the need to continue to reform the world economy," he said.

Top trade officials from the U.S., the European Union, Brazil and India said Thursday they were making progress in talks aimed at reviving treaty negotiations, but many months of inaction have dimmed prospects for a breakthrough.