Taiwan emerged as the world’s 16th-largest trading nation in terms of merchandise trade value for the first half of this year, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said yesterday, citing statistics from the WTO Web site.
That marked an improvement of one place in the WTO rankings from last year, the bureau said in a press release. The Geneva-based trade regulator typically compiles global trade rankings in terms of a country’s annual trade value.
The bureau compared data of major trading nations for the first two quarters of this year posted on the WTO Web site and came to the conclusion that Taiwan’s trade volume was the world’s 16th-largest for the six-month period.
Citing WTO statistics, the bureau said Taiwan’s merchandise trade amounted to US$131.92 billion in the first half of this year, trailing 15th-ranked Mexico by US$9.3 billion.
The bureau said Taiwan stands a good chance of overtaking Mexico in the global rankings in one or two years, especially after signing the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China.
Taiwan’s share of global exports increased significantly from 1.6 percent of the global total for the whole of last year to 1.9 percent for the first half of this year, the bureau said.
Taiwan ranked 16th in the WTO global rankings in 2003, but dropped to 18th in 2004 and remained there until 2008.
South Korea beat the other three Asian Dragons — Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore — emerging as the world’s seventh-largest trading nation, up two notches from its ranking for last year.
Hong Kong fell from 11th to 13th for the first half of this year, while Singapore’s ranking remained unchanged at 14th.
According to the bureau, China remained firmly at the top of the global rankings. China became the world’s No. 1 trading nation for the first time last year.
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