BIZCHINA / Center

China Price, world's baseline price
(Chinanews.cn)
Updated: 2006-05-24 14:21

Not only must China accommodate the world, but the world must also accommodate China.

At the "Impact of China's development on international systems" discussion forum held on the May 19th at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS), many scholars in attendance put their attention on China's new role in the world body.

China Business News quoted SASS deputy director Huang Renwei who said "The most important reason that China can develop is because it has integrated itself into the world economic body, and has obviously changed this body."

China's participation in the world economic body has created far-reaching effects on international pricing structure, one effect being the impact on price composition. SASS economic research center deputy chief Xu Mingqi said, "In the global division of labor, developing countries represented by China has an advantage primarily in industrial manufactured products. In the global division of labor China plays the role of the manufacturer. Therefore, vast amounts of imports continuously drive raw material prices upwards. But because the finished goods contain a rich amount of physical labor, their selling prices keep falling.

Because it has absorbed most of the cost increases in raw materials during the manufacturing process, exports of developing countries like China have made contributions towards controlling world inflation.

And China's prices have become the baseline prices for the world's commodities and goods. Li Xiangyang, deputy chief of the world economic and politics research center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, "The China Price has become the baseline price in trade negotiations."

"Because of China's impact on world commodities and cost of world capital, as well its special situation brought about by the dual cycles of these commodities, China's position in the world's economic rule-making process keep moving higher and higher." Said Li Xiangyang.

Although many experts also pointed out that the chances of China changing the rules of the game are relatively small, China's influence on the rules of the game are already there for all to see.
 


(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)