China's trade:Win some lose some

The rapid expansion of China's trade signals its deeper integration into the world economy and greater impact on other economies. The continued growth of its economy and the shift in its growth model, which the country's leadership has pledged to accomplish, would benefit many other economies. Having said that, major commodity producing economies are among the most likely to suffer.

The National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that China's imports and exports amounted to $4.16 trillion in 2013, an annual increase of 7.6 percent, and it recorded a trade surplus of $259.75 billion.

The country's leadership appears to be making a concerted effort to push ahead economic reforms that it pledged at the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee in November. This should in time help reduce the threat of a hard landing for the Chinese economy because of misallocation of capital and a build-up of excess capacity. The comprehensive plan for structural reform, if properly implemented, should also support stronger growth over the medium term than would otherwise be the case.

This would be positive virtually across the board for other parts of the world, particularly emerging markets, where the importance of China's economy has continued to rise. The share of emerging markets' (ex-China) exports to China has increased from 6 percent in 2009 to 8 percent today, although it is still less than 10 percent for those exported to the US.

Nonetheless, China's further development would be felt differently in different economies because the proposed reforms would shift the country's economic growth model; a greater role for the market would see resources being channeled away from capital-intensive heavy industry toward households. This means growth in investment spending would slow down, while consumer spending would benefit.

Indeed, the government seems to have started preparing the ground for rural land reform and relaxation of the hukou (house registration) system. It would probably not be long before banks are allowed to offer higher interest rates to depositors. These measures would direct a greater share of resources toward relatively poor households and increase their demand for consumer goods.

Most of economies in emerging Asia should benefit from this shift. Over the last decade, while China's economy has been expanding at an incredible pace, the growth of its consumer demand has fallen behind. A major cause of that is the shifting of a bigger share of income from average households under distorted policies that benefit investment and exports. A large part of imports reflects the need for intermediate goods for processing and re-export, which is driven by demand from overseas rather than at home.