China, Russia top world's trade surplus leaders in 2022

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
26 Mar 2023 13:07
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A new report shows that China's trade surplus increased by 30% last year, reaching an all-time high of $877.6 billion

Men move bags of goods for export in front of a trading center that houses shops and offices with Russian goods and services, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2022. (Reuters)

China's trade surplus increased by 30% last year, reaching an all-time high of $877.6 billion and placing the country in first place in the global trade surplus. Russia moved up to second position among big economies after increasing its surplus by 1.7 times over the course of the year to a record $333.4 billion, as per Sputnik calculations based on data from national statistics.

Saudi Arabia came in third with a $221.3 billion trade surplus, the most since 2012, the report added.

The report recalled that Canada was the country with the highest increase in trade surplus growth in 2022, with a 4.8-fold increase from $3.65 billion to $17.45 billion. At the same time, Nigeria was the only nation to turn its trade deficit into a surplus last year.

Concurrently, 26 significant economies saw a trade surplus of $2.45 trillion in 2022 as opposed to 32 nations with $2.1 trillion the year before.

China and Russia increasing cooperation

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed two joint strategic documents aiming to boost the two global powers' economic and diplomatic partnership.

It is also worth noting that China and Russia lately vowed to increase cooperation and increase multilateralism through various existing multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and G20 platforms.

In recent months, the BRICS bloc has begun to discuss expanding to include a number of new members, including Argentina, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

BRICS members currently account for 30% of global gross output and 40% of the global population.

Meanwhile, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), founded by China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in 2001, forms the world's biggest regional market with eight official and four observer members.

The organization accounts for 40 percent of the world's population and 28 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP).

Russia and China stated their intention to intensify communication over the WTO's agenda, particularly its reform.

The two countries further declared their support for the African Union's admission to the G20 in order to provide poor nations and emerging market economies a "greater voice" on the global stage.

In short, a growing friendship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin has helped put the two countries closer together. The ambitions to end what China and Russia regard as America's economic and geopolitical hegemony further strengthened the diplomatic and economic ties.

This is particularly expressed by the two countries employing their national currencies and gold to carry out trades. Expanding that practice to other world economies is further threatening the American dollar's status as the world's dominant reserve currency.