Eseandre Mordi
⬤ China's trade surplus reached a record high in 2024, equal to about two percent of all world trade according to new numbers from Econovis and the WTO. The figure ends an even decades long climb that turned China into the planet's main factory. The share rising from almost nothing in the mid-1900s to the current peak.
⬤ The chart highlights three events that sped the rise - China entered the WTO in 2001, the 2008 financial crisis struck plus the U.S. China trade war began in 2018. From the 1950s to the mid-1990s the surplus stayed near zero. By 2000 it stood at roughly 0.2 percent then kept climbing through the 2010s and the pandemic.
⬤ The 2024 number tops earlier peaks set during both the pandemic and the trade war. The high share shows China's leading role in world exports as well as production networks. The surplus has also become less jumpy than in past cycles.
⬤ Why it matters - when one nation holds such a large share of the global surplus, it moves currency values and shapes trade disputes. The two percent record will keep tariffs, factory moving plans or national industrial policies in the spotlight. It shows that world trade still circles around one of the largest export economies.
Eseandre Mordi
