This paper considers China’s position in world trade from two perspectives. The first section details the evolution of Chinese trade over the period 2001-2013, with an update of the global trade data from 2013 through to the 2105 December year. It highlights China’s remarkable rise in global trade importance where it has overtaken the United States (US) as the world’s largest single country exporter. This section shows China’s main trading partners and how these relationships have shifted over time. The rise of Chinese domination in manufactured exports as well as sectoral shifts in its import and export profile is emphasised. Finally, a brief discussion follows on Chinese services data.

The second part details the application of a Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model incorporating various economic variables and assumptions to project Chinese trade patterns to the year 2025. Our emphasis is on trade shares and how they are projected to shift over time. Our aggregation of the GTAP sectors is for the agriculture, natural resources, manufacturing and service sectors.

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