LONDON, July 13. /TASS/. Europe and the US would need to invest an extra $23.6 trillion over 25 years to end their economic reliance on China, while the decoupling process itself could push inflation up by as much as 2.5% in certain sectors, the Financial Times reported, citing EY-Parthenon, a division of the professional services network EY.

Experts analyzed the costs of building new production and logistics chains, processing capacity, research centers, and replacing software provided by Chinese companies. The US would require $13.7 trillion in investment for these purposes, Eurozone countries would need to invest $9.1 trillion, and the UK - $800 billion.

The US government and private companies would need to invest approximately $550 billion annually, which is roughly equivalent to the $600 billion invested by major American technology groups in data centers in 2025, the newspaper noted. The EU would have to nearly double its annual budget. As the publication emphasized, the huge required investment highlights the scale of the challenge that Western countries will face if they choose to radically reduce their dependence on China's economy. "Localizing supply chains without putting prohibitive costs on taxpayers and consumers will be one of the most formidable challenges for businesses and governments alike in coming years," said Mats Persson, an analyst at EY-Parthenon.

The analysts believe that the additional collective investment of an average of $940 billion is, in theory, "not insurmountable," but it would come on top of existing investment plans, including those for infrastructure and defense. Since Chinese selling prices are 20-100% lower than those in the West, decoupling from the Chinese economy would drive up prices and interest rates. In Europe, prices in certain economic sectors could rise by 1-2.5%.

According to Alicia Garcia-Herrero, an analyst at investment bank Natixis, a complete reduction of Western economies' dependence on China is impossible in the short run. "The challenge is not just how much it would cost, but about China's ability to intervene to stop such decoupling because of its existing control over the supply of everything from rare earths processing to active pharmaceutical ingredients," the FT quoted her as saying.