China's export machine is grabbing more of the global market

BEIJING (Sept 7): Brushing off rising wages, a shrinking workforce and intensifying competition from lower cost nations from Vietnam to Mexico, China’s global export share climbed to 14.6 percent last year from 12.9 percent a year earlier. That’s the highest proportion of world exports ever in International Monetary Fund data going back to 1980.

Yet even as its export share climbs globally, manufacturing’s slice of China’s economy is waning as services and consumption emerge as the new growth drivers. For the global economy, a slide in China’s exports this year isn’t proving any respite as an even sharper slump in its imports erodes a pillar of demand.

Those trends are likely to be replicated in August data due Thursday. Exports are estimated to fall 4 percent from a year earlier and imports are seen dropping 5.4 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $58.85 billion, according to a survey of economists by Bloomberg News as of late Tuesday.

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