China meets '25 growth target on back of exports

China, the second largest economy after the United States, has managed to meet its growth target of 5 per cent for 2025 based on its robust export growth of $1.2 trillion, which equals the GDP of Saudi Arabia, a G20 economy.

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The domestic economy is however sliding. Experts believe that maintaining GDP growth on the basis of exports alone would be difficult. It looks rather unrealistic to expect that China will be able to maintain its trade surplus at the 2025 rate.

If it were to do so, then its exports would equal that of France in 2030 at $3t and that of Germany in 2033 at $5t. But this will be a growth rate that will be impossible to sustain because the fear is that surge n Chinese exports would force many countries to raise tariffs against China.

According to Christopher Beddor, an economist at a private consultancy, “It is hard to imagine how the trade surplus could continue to expand at this clip indefinitely into the future, if only because that would incur a wider protectionist backlash abroad.”