For three long decades, China has grown at a gravity-defying pace. An economic model based on investments and exports coupled with an expanding global economy facilitated China's double-digit growth.

But this can certainly not go on forever. And it is increasingly becoming clear that the days of high-speed growth in China may be over. In the first quarter of this year, China's economy expanded by 7.7% over the previous year's corresponding quarter. Such moderation is part and parcel of economic cycles.

But when an economic giant goes through an economic transformation, it has far-reaching effects on other economies. It is widely known that China has been the biggest consumer of commodities in the previous decade. As such, a slump in Chinese imports is set to adversely affect raw material exporting nations. An article in the Financial Times points out that many commodity exporters have invested heavily to increase supplies of raw materials. They had wrongly assumed that China would grow faster than 9% forever.

Regions such as Australia, Latin America and Africa will be severely affected by declining Chinese imports. Overall, the world is likely to see a declining trend in commodity prices. This is assuming that major developed economies are unlikely to report a robust recovery.