China to top US in business travel

China is poised to displace the US as the world's biggest business-travel market by 2016, aided by accelerating export growth and slowing inflation.

Spending worldwide for business travel will climb 6.9 percent this year to $1.18 trillion, according to a report released by the Global Business Travel Association on Monday. Growth will accelerate by an estimated 8.6 percent next year and then slow in 2016 through 2018, the GBTA forecast shows.

In China, the increasing pace of exports since mid-2013, consumer prices running below government targets, and nominal wage gains that support more spending and profit growth are contributing to an expansion in the market. That contrasts with the US, where economic growth has been "stubbornly low," along with employment and wages, the GBTA said.