International Trade and Production Networks : Comparisons of China and Greater China Versus India and South Asia

China and India are two of the most important emerging countries in the world. In 2011, based on market/official exchange rates, China was the largest economy in Asia and India was the third largest. With the ongoing economic global slowdown, both India and China are expected to experience slower growth rates. Nonetheless, compared with the developed economies in North America, Europe and elsewhere, both Asian giants will still expand at relatively healthy growth rates.China overtook Germany as the world's largest exporter in 2010 (CIA Factbook 2012), with a total of US $2,370 billion manufacturing trade, which was a 26% increase from 1990. A substantial amount of China's trade consists of trade in parts and components. In 2000, the share of parts and components in China's exports to the world was 22.2%. By 2010, the comparable share has increased to 28.4%. In contrast, India's share of parts and components in its exports to the world is 17.5% in 2000. By 2010, the comparable share has actually declined to 12.4%. This contrast partly reflects the fact that India's participation in world exports of all goods has increased substantially between 2000 and 2010 (from US $42,358 million to US $220,408 million). But the absolute value of India's exports of parts and components in 2010 amounted to only US $27,433 million. This is significantly smaller than the US $448,300 million of parts and components that China exports to the world in 2010. This is the first comparison we can obtain in trade and production network between China and India. China's export of parts and components in 2010 is almost 15 times that of India