China remains strong driver of trade and air cargo

China remains a powerful driver of global trade and airfreight, despite growing Southeast Asia production and supply chains that have sustained strong air cargo demand out of the region.

Speaking to Air Cargo News, professor Steven Altman, director of the DHL Initiative on Globalization at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said that China’s trade growth has in fact defied forecasts.

“The strength of China’s trade growth, exports growth last year, and exports and imports this year, was also one of the surprises that we’ve seen recently,” he said.

“Because given the trade policy environment and the geopolitics, the forecasts were calling for a substantial slowdown in China’s trade growth, and that has not happened,” added Altman, who leads the research initiative behind both the DHL Globalization Tracker and the DHL Trade Atlas.

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