Many export parts and components that are then assembled in China for re-export.
Much of that business was simply temporarily storing gas for re-export.
The rise was fueled by a 12.2percentt climb in output from the maquiladoras, which assemble products ranging from televisions to toys for re-export.
Though Southeast Asian domestic demand is kicking in, China remains an important destination for the region's exports, often including those headed for re-export to the West.
Particularly hard-hit are car makers and maquiladoras, the manufacturing plants concentrated on the northern border that make goods from imported materials for re-export.
In a hopeful sign, however, Mr. Putin said that Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, had been ordered to turn the gas back on, for Ukraine's internal market and for re-export.
The north, close to the United States, has absorbed the lion's share of benefits from NAFTA, such as the maquiladoras, factories that import parts or materials to make finished goods for re-export.
Admittedly, a fat chunk of those imports are commodities and components that are processed for re-export to rich markets, undermining the case that China and its suppliers can truly "decouple" from the developed world.
Hong Kong and Singapore owe their position in the league to imports for re-export, which accounted for $300 billion of Hong Kong's total of $336 billion and for $129 billion of Singapore's $239 billion.
Ankara has also placed daunting conditions of the construction of the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline from Turkey to Europe, which is meant to provide an alternative to Russian-controlled gas, linking the project with Turkey's membership in the European Union, acquiring large amounts of Azeri gas for re-export and using the line for Russian and Iranian gas.
Since 1994, the number of maquiladoras (factories using imported raw materials to make goods for re-export, usually to the United States) has doubled, and half of the new factories are in the 100km-wide (60-mile) northern border region.But that has put pressure on water supplies.
