A World Trade Organization (WTO) report shows that China was the largest exporter of key medical supplies in the fight against the COVID-19 in 2020, with exports reaching 105 billion U.S. dollars, almost three times the amount in 2019, and the United States is the largest importer of similar products, according to South China Morning Post on July 2.
In addition, China is the largest seller in the United States, and key medical supplies made in China account for 40.2% of the U.S. market.
According to the definition of the WTO, masks, gloves, disinfectants, ventilators, medical disinfection and sterilization equipment, pulse oximeters, etc., are all key medical supplies that can save the health and lives of COVID-19 patients. Looking back on 2020, China took decisive measures to control the early spread of the virus, and quickly recovered when the world was deeply caught in the pandemic and the economy suffered a severe setback, demonstrating strong production capacity and responsibility as a major country.
According to this WTO report “Trade in Medical Goods in the Context of Tackling Covid-19: Developments in 2020”, in the context of the global pandemic of COVID-19 pneumonia, the global trade in medical supplies reached US$2.3 trillion in 2020, an increase of 16% compared with 2019. In contrast, the total value of global merchandise trade shrank by 7.6% last year.
In 2020, the proportion of medical supplies in the total value of global merchandise trade increased from 5.3% in the previous year to 6.6%. The trade volume of key medical supplies to fight the pandemic has increased by 31%.
According to the report, “China, the United States, and Germany are the world’s top three commodity trading nations, as well as trading nations of key products in the fight against the pandemic. These three economies accounted for 31% of the world’s total merchandise trade last year, but in key medical supplies China’s trade share reached 41%.” In addition, the report pointed out that the world’s top 10 economies supply 72% of key medical supplies, although the 5th to 10th positions are relatively small.
“In 2020, China’s exports of key medical supplies reached 105 billion U.S. dollars, almost three times that of 2019. The share of these products in the world market has also more than doubled, from 12.6% in 2019 to about 26.7% in 2020.”
“The surge in exports has made China the world’s largest exporter in 2020,” the report pointed out. By the way, another country with a significant increase in exports was Malaysia, which was 52% higher than the last year.
As in 2019, the United States was still the largest importer of key medical supplies for the new crown, followed by Germany and China. The United States imported 78 billion US dollars worth of key medical supplies from abroad, accounting for one-fifth of the world’s total. China was the largest seller in the United States, followed by Mexico and Germany.
“The bilateral trade pattern of the top three economies in the first half of 2020 remained until the end of the year.” This WTO report is updated every six months. The last update was on December 22, 2020. The latest report shows that “the United States and Germany are the largest importers of key medical supplies, and most of their imported products come from China, the world’s largest supplier. China has a 40.2% share in the US market and more than a quarter of the German market. (26.5%).”
The report shows that from January to May 2020, 70,802 new companies were newly registered and established in China to produce or engage in the trade of masks, an increase of 1256% over 2019.
In 2020, Chinese factories that once had nothing to do with masks, such as companies that manufacture golf balls, electronic cigarettes, and auto parts, also rapidly transformed to produce masks, alleviating the problem of global supply shortage.
Incidentally, on February 24 this year, “Nihon Keizai Shimbun” announced the “New Product Sales Ranking List for 2020”. The sales champion of the mask category was the flat mask produced by the Chinese car company BYD.
On January 14, Li Kuiwen, Director of the Statistical Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, revealed at a press conference that from March to the end of 2020, customs across the country have inspected and released major pandemic prevention and control materials worth 438.5 billion yuan, of which 2,242 were exported from masks, worth 340 billion yuan, equivalent to providing nearly 40 masks for everyone in the world outside of China, including 65 billion medical masks, accounting for 30% of the export volume of masks. It also exported 2.31 billion pieces of protective clothing, including 773 million pieces of medical protective clothing; 289 million pairs of goggles and 2.92 billion pairs of surgical gloves. These products provide a guarantee for medical personnel and other pandemic prevention and control personnel to do a good job in self-protection.
Li Kuiwen introduced that in terms of medical equipment, 271,000 ventilators were exported, including 212,000 non-invasive ventilators, 663,000 patient monitors, and 119 million infrared thermometers. In addition, 1.08 billion copies of coronavirus detection kits were exported, which provided support for the coronavirus detection work.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin revealed at a regular press conference on March 5 that from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021, China exported about 43.85 billion masks and about 1.19 billion pairs of surgical gloves to the United States. Approximately 950 million sets were served, 54.03 million pairs of goggles, and 17,585 ventilators. And China is willing to continue to work together with other countries in the world, including the United States, to support the WTO’s further role, promote the in-depth development of international anti-pandemic cooperation, and strive for an early victory over the pandemic.
Source: Guancha