“Listen, China: long way to go!” Those are the words of caution, and perspective, from a couple of Chinese economics scholars. Analysis from Beijing Review (photo: a shipbuilding yard in Zhejiang, via Xinhua):
In 2005, China’s gross domestic product ranked fourth in the world, overtaking Britain that year. If income through overseas investments was added, however, Britain’s gross national product surpassed China by $1,292.9 billion. China’s gross national product for 2005, which accounted for 15.8 percent of the United States’ total, 46 percent of Japan’s and 64 percent of Britain’s, was actually in sixth place worldwide. By the end of 2005, the overseas investments of the United States and Britain totaled $2,018.2 billion and $1,378.1 billion, which are generally equivalent to 90 percent and 62 percent of China’s annual gross domestic product of the year, respectively.
Currently, about 70 percent of China’s electrical and mechanical exports are products assembled with imported parts or components. Take the shipbuilding industry for example. In the second half of 2006, China built 5.28 million deadweight tons (DWT) of ships, accounting for 15.3 percent of the world total. This made it a major shipbuilder in the world, closely behind Japan and South Korea, with a 27.1 percent share of market orders. Yet Chinese enterprises’ shipping output techniques lag far behind their foreign counterparts by 10 to 15 years. Furthermore, about 80 percent of the instruments used to build a ship in China depend on imports, while in South Korea and Japan the reliance on self-developed techniques has been fundamentally realized with 85 percent or above homemade instruments used. [Full Text]
