China has 7.7 per cent of global trade volume
27 Oct 2008
Mumbai: China accounted for 7.7 per cent of total world trade in 2007 from just 0.8 per cent in 1978, China's National Bureau of Statistics said. China is now the world's third biggest trader, after the United States and Germany, compared with 29th in 1978, the bureau said in a release.
China's trade volume had risen by an average 17.4 per cent annually since 1978.
In value terms, China's total trade grew from $20 billion in 1978 to over 2.3 trillion in 2007.
Trade accounted for 66.8 per cent of the China's gross domestic product (GDP) last year, compared with 9.7 per cent in 1978.
Industrial products exports constituted 94.9 per cent of China's exports in 2007 against 49.7 per cent in 1980 while the share of primary products in the country's exports fell from 50.3 per cent to 5.1 per cent.
Overseas capital flows to China topped $760 billion, rising by an average 26.2 billion every year. Overseas investment increased to $18.7 billion last year.
Energy output had grown by an average of 4.7 per cent a year to hit 2.35 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent, second only to the United States. China could also meet around 90 per cent of its domestic energy demand, the report said.
