CONFIRMED: A Major New Source Of Global Demand Is Starting To Boom

Cool chart here from Nomura, which examines export from Asia's "Big 4" (China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore).

It shows the year-over-year change by end export destination.

The real story, they note, is how fast the Rest Of Asia (Asia ex-Japan) is growing compared to the entire world. Asia Ex-Japan wasn't growing that much faster, demand-wise, than the rest of the world up until recently.

Says Nomura:

..the Asian 4's exports were strongest to Asia ex-Japan itself, with the rate of growth rising from 15.0% y-o-y in November to 18.3% in December. This seems to reflect genuine Asian demand, rather than just demand for processing trade, as China?s exports to Asia ex-Japan surged 28.9% y-o-y in December. This powerful force of intra-Asian trade gels with our view that Asian domestic demand is strengthening on very loose policies and robust capital inflows.