Trade Policy, Structural Change and China's Trade Growth
During the past twenty years, the Chinese economy has become substantially more integrated into the world economy. China’s share of world exports has risen dramatically, and its composition has shifted strongly away from primary commodities towards manufactures. China’s recent offers for WTO accession involve another large step forward in integrating China into the world economy. To assess the implications of these reforms, and the underlying changes in the economy, we project the structure of the world economy forward to 2005 taking into account the pressures for change resulting from income growth and biased factor accumulation. Our very broad projections suggest that China will continue to increase its share of the world economy and world trade. The increase in China’s trade share depends heavily on the extent of liberalization, with a close-to-final proposal estimated to result in an increase in China’s shares of world export (and import) markets from around three and a half percent in 1995 to over six percent by 2005.