Mon, Jan 11, 2010 page11

• China cements status as top exporter

  AUF WIEDERSEHEN In the race for No. 1 exporter, China left Germany behind late last year. Beijing is hoping the robust figures mean the worst is over for its economy

  • AFP
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  China’s exports surged 17.7 percent last month to snap a 13-month falling streak, state television said yesterday, cementing the Asian power’s new status as the world’s biggest exporter.

  Exports hit US$130.7 billion during the month, bringing the full-year export figure to US$1.20 trillion, China Central Television (CCTV) said, quoting figures from the General Administration of Customs.

  Data out of Germany last week showed that China overtook Europe’s biggest economy in November to become the world’s top exporting nation.

  

  Workers prepare for their shift at Shanghai’s Yangshan container port on June 2 last year. China’s exports surged 17.7 percent last month to snap a 13-month falling streak, the government said yesterday, cementing the country’s status as the world’s biggest exporter.

  PHOTO: AFP

  Last month’s data broke a long string stretching back to late 2008 in which monthly Chinese exports had contracted as foreign markets dried up in the global economic downturn.

  CCTV quoted a top customs official as saying the figures indicated the worst was over for China’s vital export sector.

  “This is an extremely important turning point. Our nation’s foreign trade had been falling for 13 consecutive months but is now growing,” said Huang Guohua (黃國華), head of the customs bureau’s statistical analysis department. “Our nation’s exporters have emerged from their downslide.”

  Overall foreign trade — both exports and imports — fell 13.9 percent last year to US$2.21 trillion, the data showed, as monthly exports fell sharply on a year-on-year basis in each of the first 10 months of the year.

  But that changed in November, when exports slipped just 1.2 percent, the slowest decline of the year.

  Imports for last month reached US$112 billion, while full-year imports came in at US$1.005 trillion.

  The figures provided by CCTV indicated the nation’s politically sensitive trade surplus hit US$18.4 billion last month, while the full-year surplus came to US$197 billion.

  Last year’s trade surplus was down 34.2 percent from 2008, Xinhua news agency said.

  With China’s trade figures for all of last year now public, the nation’s crowning as last year’s export champion is expected to be confirmed when Germany releases full-year trade figures on Feb. 9.

  From January to November, Chinese exports were worth US$1.07 trillion, while data from the German national statistics office on Friday showed that exports from the European heavyweight amounted to US$1.05 trillion.

  Experts have said a resurgence in Chinese trade will likely bring renewed pressure on China to let its yuan currency appreciate.

  The value of the yuan, which has effectively been pegged to the US dollar since mid-2008, has been a bone of contention between Beijing and its Western trading partners, who say it keeps the currency low to boost exports.

  While Beijing has acknowledged the need to boost domestic consumption and reduce the country’s reliance on exports and investment to drive the economy, it has so far refused to budge on its currency policy.

  Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said last month in an interview with state media that China would not yield to foreign pressure on the yuan.
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