The world is changing and has always been. The same can be said about emerging markets and the analysis of their market reforms which were particularly visible in many former planned European economies. At the same time, herd behaviour is not easy to foresee under global conditions where psychology will play an increasingly important role also for the economic development.
2014 onwards, the analysis of emerging markets got a new dimension. Covid 19 meant a new puzzling analytical conundrum during a few years. Now, it seems to be a safe forecast that politics will remain very important for the future analysis of emerging markets – probably increasingly important in a longer perspective. In this context, the analysis of China’s and Russia’s ambitions in the emerging world could become particularly interesting (without discussing India’s strong potential in this specific paper). The activities of the U.S. in emerging countries certainly not to forget! The future positioning of the EU in emerging countries seems to be more uncertain.
Altogether, geopolitical ambitions of the three global superpower countries will most probably gain further momentum in the analysis of emerging markets.
*The Online access to the full paper is through Elsevier or EBSCO which may be possible by library agreements of certain universities.
Hubert Fromlet Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
Below, we examine the WTO statistics on the main exporting nations. Many advanced countries had quite bleak performances in 2024 due to weak global demand. Quite a number of emerging markets on the other hand achieved more favorable developments. The magnitude of trade damage caused by President Trump’s protectionism starting in 2025 remains to be seen.
China was still the largest exporting nation in the world after a 6-percent increase in current prices last year, giving the Middle Kingdom a global export share of almost 15 percent. This was partly made possible as a result of further Chinese progress in the emerging world, particularly in Africa and South America. China counts for roughly 7 percent of total global goods exports. For 2025, China is predicted to achieve record shipments in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
India remains lagging behind, Vietnam is catching up
Despite the enormous size of the country, India still has not advanced further than to number 18 of the globe’s leading exporting nations. This is sometimes regarded as disappointing. However, one should remember that India for a long time only had very limited foreign competition at home and for this reason insufficient conditions for exporting to the rest of the world on a broader scale of products. India as a country is still catching up also when it comes to exports and product diversification.
By the way, only a few emerging markets are among the top 20 exporting nations – but they dominate in the third group from number 21 to 30. Particularly in the medium and longer run, they will most probably improve their positions further.
In detail, the list of the 30 leading exporters of goods in 2024 looked as follows (in billion USD, in brackets all changes in percent and in current prices in, source WTO):
1 China 3577 (+6)
2 U.S. 2065 (+2)
3 Germany 1682 (-1)
4 Netherlands 921 (-2)
5 Japan 707 (-1)
6 South Korea 684 (+8)
7 Italy 674 (0)
8. Hong Kong 64z6 (+12)
9 France 639 (+11)
10 Mexico 617 (+4)
11 UAE 604 (+6)
12 Canada 569 (0)
13 Belgium 536 (-6)
14 UK 513 (-2)
15 Singapore 506 (+6)
16 Taiwan 474 (+10)
17 Switzerland 447 (+6)
18 India 443 (+3)
19 Russia 433 (+2)
20 Spain 424 (0)
21 Vietnam 405 (+14)
22 Poland 380 (0)
23 Australia 341 (-8)
24 Brazil 337 (-1)
26 Malaysia 330 (+6)
26 Saudi Arabia 305 (-5)
27 Thailand 301 (+5)
2 Indonesia 265 (+2)
29 Czech Republik 263 (+3)
30 Turkey 262 (+2)
Source: WTO.org
Asia in the lead regarding suppliers from emerging countries
Interestingly, Asian emerging countries had the most successful export performance in 2024 (but again, without knowing how much they are now affected by Trump’s ongoing protectionism). This position can be expected to remain in place in the foreseeable future. It also should be mentioned that particularly Vietnam benefited more recently from shifting global supply chains.
Surprisingly, Russia remained also in 2024 quite a successful exporting nation due to oil and gas exports to China, India and other countries still dealing substantially with Russia.
Conclusion: Trade statistics from the WTO remain illuminating, especially on the corporate level – for both purchasing, sales and production managers.
Hubert Fromlet Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
Russia is causing these days – for well-known reasons – almost no headlines or analysis on its pure economic development in Western analysis. An exemption is the important work done by BOFIT in Helsinki which is an organization that still provides the world with updated analysis on the Russian economy.
Anyway, the Russian economy looks very much like stagnating these days, reflecting a deterioration from previous more positive growth numbers (Q2:+1.1%; Q1:1.4% yoy, but down by 0,6% in the course of the first half of 2025 according to Reuters and the CBR).
Interestingly, existing sluggish economic growth is mainly referred to still existing high interest rates as the main medicine against very high inflation and their negative impact on non-military investment. Poor economic results for many Russian companies also had – and probably still have – a negative impact on investment plans. On the other hand, government spending continues to grow and will do so in the future.
Altogether, the non-military part of the Russian economy has more recently – according to BOFIT – mainly been driven by private consumption. This is obviously confirmed by statistical numbers for retail sales and services – a development that is to some extent supported by relatively low unemployment.
Measured from the production side it can be summarized that industrial production remains more or less stagnating with rising production of commodities and shrinking output of quite some manufacturing goods – but with positive numbers for certain manufactured products such as transport and electronic equipment.
Summary: When studying forecasts on the Russian GDP, stagnation or in the best case only a very weak increase seems to be on the cards for 2025, indicating some further weakening in the forthcoming quarters and probably no visibly improved performance next year. But uncertainty – also statistical? – remains high in 2026.
Hubert Fromlet Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
