Interview: Commonwealth sees huge potential in trade with China: Deputy Secretary-General

The 53 Commonwealth members' trade expansion with China has been particularly spectacular, and there remains huge untapped potential, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Deodat Maharaj said here in a recent interview with Xinhua.

The Commonwealth is made up of 53 independent countries with a combined population of 2.2 billion people. The association includes countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean and Americas.

Talking about the "Commonwealth Trade Review 2015," a report providing a comprehensive analysis of Commonwealth trade, the Deputy Secretary-General said, "We have seen a spectacular rise in the trade between the Commonwealth and China in the last decade."

According to the report, since 2000, total Commonwealth exports to China have increased more than fourteen-fold, from 19 billion U.S. dollars to 268 billion U.S. dollars, and imports from China have risen almost eight-fold, from 46 billion dollars to 359 billion dollars.

In 2013, on average, 12 percent of Commonwealth countries' imports originated from China and 10 percent of their exports were destined for China.

"In the same period, Commonwealth trade with the world rose by only 2.5 times. The rapid expansion of trade with China becomes obvious," Maharaj said.

"For many countries, trading with China has been one of the defining features of global trade," the report said, noting that the volume and growth rate of trade between Commonwealth countries both exceeded that between the Commonwealth and China.

By comparison, the total value of goods and services traded between Commonwealth member countries stood at 592 billion dollars in 2013, an average annual growth of almost 10 percent each year since 1995. Meanwhile, the report said the volume of China-Commonwealth trade was estimated to have grown to 687 billion dollars in 2015 and projected to exceed one trillion dollars by 2020.

In 2000, China accounted for 10 percent or more of imports for just one Commonwealth member; in 2013, the corresponding number of members had increased to 28, according to the report.

"Turning to exports of goods, while there has been a general increase in exports to the Chinese market, this has been much less spectacular," he said, adding that for as many as 35 Commonwealth members, less than 5 percent of their exports in 2013 were destined for China.

"Therefore, I think there is a huge potential for many of our member states to continue to build a very strong and vibrant trading relationship with China," he stressed.

For example, Maharaj said, it is important for many developing countries in the Caribbean to try to attract tourists from China, because their economies are driven by tourism.

"Therefore, they need to diversify their markets and China to my mind is an important policy option," he said.

In terms of possible steps with China, the Deputy Secretary-General said the Commonwealth was keen to build a partnership with China to help build productive trade capacities for its small and vulnerable states.

Small states, constituting 31 of the Commonwealth's membership, depend crucially on international trade for their overall economic prospects. With limited resources, these states face many trade challenges, including dependence on a narrow range of exports and limited capacity to harness growth opportunities.

There is widespread acknowledgement today that small states require heterodox solutions to address their specific challenges and vulnerabilities. Therefore, the Commonwealth executive body encouraged these countries to build capacities to export more to emerging and large developing countries markets, like China.

"I believe that China can certainly play an important role in those aspects," Maharaj said, suggesting that China could contribute key capacity-building initiatives to enable small state countries to be evolved in trade.

Referring to the prospective of China's economy, the Deputy Secretary-General said he was confident in the development of the Chinese economy.

"China's economy is absolutely critical to ensure that we continue to have global trade increasing," he stressed.

Having travelled around to Commonwealth countries, Maharaj found that China had already built a very good trade relationship with them.

"We would like to see continued growth and prosperity in China," he said, "If China is doing well, so can the rest of us. This is important to ensure the smallest and most vulnerable countries in the world have an equal share."

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association and is not a trading bloc. It does not possess association-wide policy mechanisms to promote trade.

However, the coming year would be offering a breakthrough for the partnership between the Commonwealth and China, during China's presidency of G20, he said.

"We have a regular development dialogue with the presidency of G20," Maharaj introduced, saying that the dialogues between the G20 and the Commonwealth had included supporting a hundred developing countries.

"We are very keen and excited to work with China during this year of G20 presidency to enable some of the key issues that we know China can advance and play an important global leadership role," Maharaj said.

"Certainly trade is one area, infrastructure is another important area," Maharaj said, noting that infrastructure development was not only in the context of trading corridors, but also in the context of climate change, mitigation, and adaptation.

"I think the partnership could certainly expand from economic issues to environmental issues and development issues, in which China can certainly play a much more important role," Maharaj said. Endit