Maritime trade through SChina Sea booms

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Global trade through the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) totalled $28 trillion from 2008 to 2016, with annual value rising from $2.61 trillion in 2008 to $3.37 trillion in 2016, a leading US think tank said in a report on Friday.

The data came from a team led by Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In pursuit of an accurate estimation, the team constructed a new dataset for South China Sea trade using common shipping routes, automatic identification system

passed through the South China Sea in 2016. “These estimates represent a sizeable proportion of international trade, constituting between 21 percent of global trade in 2016,” the research said.

According to the report, more than 64 percent of China’s maritime trade transited the waterway in 2016, while nearly 42 percent of that of Japan’s passed through the South China Sea in the same year. The United States was less reliant on the South China Sea, with just more than 14 percent of its maritime trade passing through the waterway.

From 2009 to 2016, trade though the waterway increased in six years out of eight, said the report. In other words, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea in recent years did not stop maritime trade from booming.

South China Sea for Chinese trade, Beijing may be more inclined to of trade,” said the report.