Sixty percent of trading firms in China plan to target emerging markets like India and Vietnam for business in the next five years, according to the Economic Times of India.
This focus will help China’s trade to grow almost twice as fast as the global average through 2016, and the country could replace the US as the world’s biggest trading nation by that time, the report said, citing a HSBC Holdings Plc survey.
Facing shrinking demand in developed countries, 62 percent of the respondents in the survey, which covered 700 trading companies in China, said they would bolster business with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. Also, 41.7 percent said they would expand ties with other developing countries, including Egypt, Indonesia and Vietnam.
“The demand from traditional consumer markets in the West is expected to slow as the evolving European debt crisis threatens the global outlook,” HSBC said.
The report said China will stimulate growth with fiscal stimulus and an acceleration in infrastructure projects, raising its imports of commodities from Latin America and the Middle East.
But over half of the respondents said they would continue trading with Europe and the US. China overtook Germany as the world’s largest exporter in 2009. To sustain growth and lift domestic demand, China is planning to increase imports.
China’s exports and imports fell in January amid collapsing external demand and a slowing domestic economy, according to the report. Source: Economic Times of India
