MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

China outpaces US as main consumer nation.

China became in 2004 the world's main consumer of several basic items for industrial countries (commodities and energy), --displacing United States--, according to a report from the Washington based Earth Policy Institute.

China figured ahead of the US in consumption of cereals, meat, coal, steel and is only second in oil demand. In another strategic area, fertilizers, Chinese consumption doubles the US.

The growing Asian giant market for refrigerators, television sets and cellular phones is also second to none and only in automobiles figures behind the US.

Another area where China is zooming ahead is personal computers with domestic sales doubling every 28 months.

"The Chinese advance over the United States as a consumer nation must be interpreted as another step forward in the evolution road to world economic leadership", said Lester Brown head of the Earth Policy Institute.

However the analyst pointed out that the apparently insatiable Chinese appetite is pushing commodities prices and maritime freight rates.

Another threat for the US is that it has become highly dependent on the infusion of Chinese capital surpluses to sustain the financing of its surging trade deficit with China.

"If China decides to divert its capital surpluses somewhere else, be it for domestic investment or the development of oil, gas and mineral resources in other countries, the US economy will be in trouble", said Mr. Brown who recalled that China has no Kyoto Protocol environment obligations since she's considered a developing nation.

However Mr. Brown highlights that "China is no longer a developing nation, but rather an emerging world superpower, which is writing its own economic history".