Geographical structure of the world trade in the 21st century

South-South and North-North trades.

Since the beginning of the 1990's South-South trade has expanded faster than North-North trade. Since 2003, South-South trade went up sharply, and its volume increased more than four times. If in the future South is able to maintain growth of domestic trade at the same levels, then in 2015, South-South trade will reach 50% of the trade volume of the northern block. But, recent economic crisis has shown that globalization has tightly linked both developed and developing countries. This is clearly showed by the doubled growth of North-South trade. Obviously, trade growth was contributed by economic growth. In recent years developing countries had the advantage even in the economic growth.

BRIC. The BRIC countries have increased their share of exports and imports with countries of emerging economies. This is exceptional growth of regional trade integration, and they are clearly accelerating. At the same time the trade volume between countries of this group isn’t big. However, although, nowadays the trade volume between BRIC countries isn’t big, there is potential for its acceleration. It is expected that BRICs trade will annually increase by 12% by 2015.

China and India. China is already significantly integrated to the world economy. It is proved by its fast trade integration that China is the main partner for many countries. In the past decade, Chinese exports in dollar terms increased by 23% per year, which is more than twice the rate of growth of world trade. Over the last decade, its ratio of trade to GDP has doubled. At the same time India is not integrated with respect to its size and has great potential to "catch up" in the coming years. However, the share of trade in Indian’s GDP has doubled since 2003. This may have become only the beginning of a very long "catching up to globalization" period. Currently, although it retains competitiveness in low-tech goods, China's comparative advantage lies clearly in the high-tech sector. Meanwhile, the comparative advantage of India is associated with the medium-and low-tech sectors.

So, it is new stage of globalization. Its driving forces are developing countries. Developing countries are becoming more and more dependent on each other and less and less on developed world.