China’s exports for last month grew much more strongly than expected, official figures showed yesterday, as a rebound in overseas shipments gained strength on demand from China’s US and Europe.
Exports increased 12.7 percent to US$202.2 billion from November last year, the Chinese General Administration of Customs said — compared with a forecast of 7 percent in a poll of 11 economists by the Wall Street Journal reported by Dow Jones Newswires.
Imports were up 5.3 percent year-on-year to US$168.4 billion, with China’s trade surplus last month expanding to US$33.8 billion from US$31.1 billion in October.
Photo: Reuters
The surplus for last month was also considerably larger than the median forecast of US$21.7 billion by the 11 economists.
The surprisingly strong exports data came after overseas shipments expanded 5.6 percent in October following a decline of 0.3 percent in September.
“China’s November exports came in much higher than expected,” ANZ bank economists Liu Li-Gang (劉利剛) and Zhou Hao (周浩) said in a report, citing “better demand from developed economies” the US and the EU.
The latest trade data came after China’s economy snapped out of a first-half slump, with GDP growth in the third quarter accelerating to 7.8 percent after it slowed during the first two quarters.
Earlier this month, official figures showed that China’s manufacturing growth maintained a strong pace last month from the previous month to stay at a 19-month high.
The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) was at 51.4, unchanged from October, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said.
A reading above 50 signals expansion while a figure below indicates contraction.
In the first 11 months of the year, China’s total trade, combining exports and imports, reached US$3.8 trillion, up 7.7 percent from the same period last year, Customs said. The government’s target for this year is 8 percent.
“The data in January to November suggest that China could achieve the 8 percent trade growth target for the whole year,” Liu and Zhou said.
However, they cautioned against overoptimism, stressing what they described as “inflated export growth in the first half of the year” when companies were caught overinvoicing, which instigated a crackdown by Chinese authorities on the practice.
Meanwhile, China, the world’s largest buyer of iron ore, increased imports of the steelmaking ingredient to a record last month as traders replenished stockpiles.
Imports totaled 77.84 million tons last month, up from 67.83 million tonnes in October and 65.78 million tonnes a year earlier, the latest customs data showed.
Cumulative shipments in the first 11 months jumped 10.9 percent to 746.1 million tonnes, the customs agency said.
Iron ore entered a bull market in July as users in China increased stockpiles that shrank in March to the lowest level since 2009.
The market’s supply and demand outlook is positive as producers globally struggle to deliver larger volumes and demand in China continues to grow strongly, Rio Tinto Group iron ore chief executive officer Andrew Harding said on Wednesday.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
RSS