China surpassed the United States as the world's top exporter of laptop computers, mobile phones and other information and communications technology devices in 2004, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said yesterday.
China exported $180 billion (€150 billion) worth of so-called ICT goods in 2004, compared with US exports of $149 billion, the OECD, a free-market agency funded by 30 countries, said.
OECD officials said that China was likely to take top spot in 2005 too, but hard proof would take many months to collect.
The United States was world leader in 2003 with $137 billion worth of exports of ICT goods, followed by China with $123 billion, the OECD said in a statement.
"The data show a shift towards more trade between China and other Asian countries, with a corresponding decline in ICT imports to this region from the European Union and the US," it said.
China's Lenovo Group has long dominated the Chinese computer market, the world's second-largest, but it burst onto the world stage this year as the third-biggest maker of computers with the purchase of IBM's PC business, behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
China used to rely heavily on Europe and the United States for computer chips and other components but is now turning to suppliers in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia, the OECD said.
"China itself is also manufacturing and exporting more electronic components than ever before, with these now forming China's second-largest export item, after computers and related equipment," it said.
Meanwhile, the US administration has said that it will reject proposals that would have restricted Chinese and other foreign researchers' access to militarily-sensitive US technologies on the basis of which country they were born in.
US undersecretary of commerce Dave McCormick has said that the administration has decided not to change the current standard, which bases the restriction controls on an individual's most recent citizenship or permanent residence.
The decision will be greeted with relief by US universities and big companies, which had feared that the administration would impose new restrictions that would make it particularly difficult for them to employ Chinese nationals.
The US commerce department's inspector general had warned last year that current regulations inadequately protected sensitive US technologies and were insufficient to protect them from transfer to China and other potential US adversaries.
US intelligence and law enforcement security agencies have also been pushing to tighten the rules.
