Local News | Patterns shifting in sales to China | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | Patterns shifting in sales to China | Seattle Times Newspaper:

China is Washington state's biggest foreign customer, with a shopping list long dominated by Boeing planes and aerospace parts worth close to $4 billion annually.

Yet the nature of that trade is subtly changing, reflecting China's appetite for materials to feed its booming industries.

What we're shipping from Seattle to ports such as Shanghai are more raw materials, food and basic commodities, things such as timber, copper and silicon.

"It looks like we're a Third World country," said Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle President Bill Stafford.