Hailed as the most important emerging economies, the Bric countries have a very disparate record on trade, especially exports. These four countries that account for 43.5% of the global population and 21.4% of the world output contributed to just 12.6% of the international export trade in goods & services in 2007. The country whose global share of production and exports were broadly similar was China, which accounts for 10.8% of the global output and 7.8% of the global exports. Russia follows closely with its share in output and exports being 3.2% and 2.3% respectively. Next fared Brazil and its 1.1% share in international trade was more than one-third of its 2.8% share in global output. And then was India with its 1.4% share of international trade being even less than one-third of its 4.6% share in global production.
And the Bric countries export competency in merchandise goods was marginally better than that in services with their share in global exports at 13.4%. Such export competence has helped boost merchandise exports of Bric countries much faster than the global trends in the current decade. Numbers for 2000-07 show that while global merchandise exports rose by an annual average rate of 12%, that of China rose by 25%, India by 20%, Russia by 19% and Brazil by 17%.
China merchandise export gains, however, far outshined that of other Bric countries both in terms of the diverse kinds of merchandise products exported and the gains made in global export markets. The only product where China?s gains in international trade were overshadowed by another Bric country was in the case of agriculture exports where Brazil had a better record. Numbers show that while China share of global agriculture exports increased by 0.4% percentage points between 2000 and 2007 to touch 3.4% of the international exports, the share of Brazilian agriculture exports rose by 1.5 percentage points to 4.3% of the global exports. Though the share of the other Bric countries like India and Russia in global agriculture exports were a smaller 1.4 and 2.1% respectively, they have also fared reasonably well by boosting agriculture export growth to higher levels. Figures for the 2000-07 period show growth of agriculture exports from Brazil and Russia were the highest at 18% per annum, while India came second with a 15% growth and China fared the last with the agriculture export pick up down to just 13%.
China?s lead in merchandise exports was primarily triggered by manufactured products where its gains far out-shadowed that of the other Bric countries. Numbers show that while China?s share of global manufacturing exports rose by 7.2 percentage points to reach 11.9% in the seven years up to 2007, India?s share rose by just 0.3 percentage points to reach 1%. However, the share of manufactured good exports of other Bric countries like Russia and Brazil were still lower.
In manufactured products the greatest gains made by China were both in relatively high technology areas like electronic data processing (EDP) and telecom and also in traditional goods like clothing & textiles. In the case of the more technology-intensive products like EDP and telecom, China?s global share rose by 25.7 and 19.3 percentage points to reach 30.7% and 26.1% of the global exports in the seven year period between 2000 and 2007. In the case of textile & clothing the gains were marginally lower with the global share of the Chinese exports going up by 13.2 and 15.2 percentage points to touch 23.5% and 33.4% of the global share.
?(to be concluded)
