China led the ranking of the world’s leading exporters of intermediate goods (IG) in the third quarter of 2021, with 382 billion dollars.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) released this classification as part of a general report on this group of products.
After China were: the United States, Germany, Hong Kong and South Korea.
China’s exports of intermediate goods grew 36% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2021.
IG exports by region, Q3 2021
Economy is a global supplier of IG components (memories, integrated circuits, processors), parts and accessories for phones and high-tech machines, lithium-ion batteries, photovoltaic cells, and electrical components.
In particular, IG exports from the United States increased 22%, of which 38% went to regional partners in Canada (main exported IG product: vaccines, 597% increase) and Mexico (main exported IG product: vaccine manufacturing), parts and accessories, 76 percentage increase).
At 46%, Belgium had the highest growth in the third quarter of 2021 among the main IG exporters, after 64% in the second quarter of 2021, with vaccines as the most traded IG (356 percent).
Intermediate goods
German IG exports, of which more than half were shipped to European supply chains, grew 18% in the third quarter of 2021.
Meanwhile, motor vehicle parts and accessories continued to be the most exported IGs; vaccine exports grew the most since the beginning of 2021 (an 18x multiplier year-over-year, $4.1 billion in Q3 2021).
Thus, producing countries exchanged more and more vaccine products throughout 2021, with high rates of year-on-year growth in exports observed in the third quarter of 2021.
They were the main inputs exported for other industrial supplies in the third quarter (40.5 billion dollars), which represents 1.6% of total exports of intermediate products.
Africa and South and Central America maintained an upward trend in their participation in global supply chains, mainly through the supply of primary food or mining products.
Although at low levels, intraregional trade in intermediate goods continued to increase in South and Central America (56% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2021, after 72% in the second quarter).
