China to overtake US: Expected to become world's largest importer in 5 yrs

China is expected to overtake the US to become the world's largest importer within five years, a leading Chinese investment firm said on Monday.

In the past ten years, China's annual average import growth was six percentage points higher than the US, Xinhua news agency reported.

If that growth gap remains in 2018 and moderates by 0.15 percentage points in each of the following years in a baseline scenario, the country will become the world's largest importer by 2022, according to a report released by China International Capital Corporation (CICC).

By a more conservative estimate, China will become the top importer by 2025, CICC said.

China is now the world's largest exporter and the second largest importer. As the domestic economy has stabilised and global commodity prices have recovered, imports in the first ten months of the year rose 21.5 per cent year on year, official data showed.

The country's rising imports have a significant global impact, as it is the largest importer for 41 countries and regions, compared with 36 for the US, the CICC report said.
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