A Brief Analysis of China's Auto Commodity Import and Export Trade in 2000-10 (2)

Connected: A Brief Analysis of China's Import and Export Trade of Automobile Products in 2000-10 (I)

Although China’s trade deficit in the European Union, Japan, and South Korea’s automobile products has been declining for the past 11 years, it has been a trade surplus with the US’s auto commodity trade. From 2000 to 2010, China imported a total of 16.361 billion U.S. dollars worth of auto products (less than its imports from South Korea), but exported US$32.46 billion worth of auto products to the United States. However, China's automotive products exported to the United States are mainly auto parts, and it is mainly because American automakers have increased their procurement of spare parts from China in order to reduce costs in competition with foreign Japanese and South Korean automakers. China's accession to the WTO at the end of 2001 provided an opportunity for it.

The US auto imports from China amounted to 528 million U.S. dollars and 631 million U.S. dollars in 2000 and 2001 respectively. In 2002, U.S. surged 46.06% to 922 million U.S. dollars. In 2003, it increased by 36.28% to 1.257 billion U.S. dollars. In 2004, it further increased by 69.83 U.S. dollars. % to 2.134 billion U.S. dollars and in 2007 it reached 4.955 billion U.S. dollars. Compared with 2001, the compound annual growth rate for the six years in 2002-07 reached 40.97%. Afterwards, affected by the financial crisis, in 2008 the United States imported only 2.13% of its auto imports from China and fell by 20.44% in 2009. However, as both GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy protection in the second half of 2009, the US auto market recovered in 2010. In 2010, the U.S. auto imports from China increased by 46.08% to 5.881 billion U.S. dollars, a record high.

Automobile exports are at a low level in the manufacturing industry. WTO exports can be divided into three categories: agricultural products, fuels and minerals, and manufacturing products. Among them, manufacturing products include steel, chemicals (including pharmaceuticals and others), other semi-finished products, machinery and transportation equipment (including office and telecommunication equipment, transportation equipment, and other machinery), textiles, clothing, and other manufactured goods. (Including personal and household items, scientific instruments and control instruments, and other products). "Office and telecommunications equipment" includes three categories: EDP (Advanced Management Training) and office equipment, telecommunications equipment, and integrated circuits. "Traffic equipment" includes automobiles and other transportation equipment (both containing their own parts and components). "Other mechanical equipment" includes three categories: power machinery, non-electric machinery, and electrical machinery. The above classification has been fixed since 2003.

From the perspective of the export of commodities with specific industries listed above, the highest export value in 2003-10 was EDP and office equipment, and its 2010 export value reached US$205.999 billion. Other categories of goods with higher export value include telecommunications equipment, clothing, and electrical machinery. The exports of these three types of commodities in 2010 all exceeded US$100 billion. The exports of personal goods and household goods, non-electrical machinery, textiles, medicines other than medicines, transportation equipment (including parts and components) other than automobiles, and integrated circuits exceeded US$60 billion in 2010. Scientific instruments and control instruments, and steel exports in 2010 were more than 39.5 billion US dollars.

The export volume of auto goods in 2010 was only US$28.037 billion. In fact, at least since 2003, automotive products have been the third-lowest exporters of the products listed above. Its export volume in 2003-10 was only higher than that of power machinery and medicines, and it was far lower than the aforementioned 12 major categories of commodities.

Note:

When the WTO published its 2002 data, it listed the data for the previous two years. The WTO's import and export data for "China", "Hong Kong, China" and "China Taiwan" are listed separately. This article uses the "China" data listed.