China’s export growth slowed last month while imports accelerated, possibly helping to temper fears of a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.
Exports rose 4.3 percent to US$207.7 billion, slowing from November’s 12.7 percent expansion, trade data showed yesterday. Imports rose 8.3 percent to US$182.1 billion, up from the previous month’s 7.6 percent.
Stronger exports might be a sign China’s domestic demand is relatively strong despite concerns the economic recovery is weakening.
China’s economic growth tumbled to a two-decade low of 7.5 percent in the second quarter last year. It rebounded to 7.8 percent the following quarter, but private sector analysts say that recovery is likely to fade.
The Cabinet late last month said it expected last year’s full-year growth to be 7.6 percent, which would be the weakest performance since 1999.
“Our country’s economic development was stable overall,” customs spokesman Zheng Yuesheng (鄭躍聲) said at a news conference.
However, “China’s foreign trade enterprises face a complex and fickle domestic and international environment,” he added.
For the full year, exports were US$2.2 trillion while imports were US$1.9 trillion. China’s global trade surplus widened by 12.6 percent to US$260.2 billion.
Zheng said it was the first time China’s total annual trade topped US$4 trillion. China edged past the United States in 2012 as the world’s biggest trader and likely widened its lead last year.
Analysts said last month’s trade might be stronger than it appeared in comparison with figures a year earlier, when analysts believe exporters reported falsely inflated prices to evade currency controls and bring money into China for investment.
Citigroup said real growth might be 9 percent, more than double the reported level.
“The pickup in export momentum in recent months is real,” RBS economist Louis Kuijs said.
As for imports, “growth was very strong and beat market expectations,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a report.
China has long been the world’s factory, with a voracious appetite for oil, iron ore and other raw materials that propelled economic booms in Brazil, Australia and other commodities exporters. More recently, it is emerging as a major market, helping to drive demand for food, mobile phones, autos and other consumer goods.
Chinese leaders are trying to reduce reliance on trade and investment by promoting domestic consumption, but household spending is rising more slowly than they want. That forced Beijing to backtrack temporarily last year and launch a mini-stimulus to shore up growth with higher spending on building railways and other public works.
In a reflection of China’s stronger growth and demand for imports, its politically sensitive trade surpluses with the US and the EU narrowed last month and for all of last year, though the gaps still were large.
The surplus with the US last month narrowed by 4.8 percent to US$17.8 billion and for the full year by 1.3 percent to US$215.9 billion. That with the EU narrowed by 1.5 percent last month to US$12.9 billion and for last year by 2.5 percent to US$118.9 billion.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last