The debate on global imbalances often revolves around China’s gigantic current account surplus. Yet as this week’s beyondbrics chart shows, China’s current account surplus as a percentage of GDP is smaller than many of its emerging market peers.
To what extent that point will be recognised in debates over the global economy at this week’s G20 meeting in Seoul is another matter.
Countries above the horizontal axis on the chart run surpluses and those below have deficits. The bigger the circle, the larger the balance is in absolute terms. The further the country is from the horizontal axis, the larger the balance as a proportion of GDP. The further it is from the vertical axis, the more its balance has grown or shrunk in the past decade.