China’s exports rose in December for the first time in 14 months and imports surged 55.9 per cent to a record as the nation helps power a global recovery.
Exports climbed 17.7 per cent from a year earlier, the customs bureau said on its Web site today. None of 21 economists in a Bloomberg News survey forecast such large gains in exports or imports. The year-on-year comparisons are affected by declines from late 2008 as the global credit crisis deepened.
Rebounding trade may encourage Chinese policy makers to let the yuan resume its appreciation against the dollar this year after a 17-month halt that aided the nation’s exports as demand slumped. Preventing currency gains helped China overtake Germany as the world’s No 1 exporter in 2009 even as the Asian nation reported today its first annual decline in overseas shipments in more than 25 years.
The data “could add more pressure on the renminbi,” said Lu Ting, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, using another term for the yuan. The “handsome recovery of China’s external trade” mirrored gains by other nations in the region, Lu said.
China’s shipments to the US and the European Union grew 15.9 per cent and 10.2 per cent respectively in December from a year earlier, the data showed. Imports from Australia and Malaysia more than doubled.
Export gains may make the world’s fastest-growing major economy less dependent on government stimulus measures, which included letting banks extend record credit last year.
The central bank last week guided three-month bill yields higher, suggesting that the government wants to rein in liquidity to limit the risks of real-estate bubbles and resurgent inflation. The State Council said today that the government would strengthen guidance of banks’ home loans.
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Exports were $130.7 billion and imports were $112.3 billion, leaving a trade surplus of $18.4 billion. The customs bureau said the import value was unprecedented and exports were the fourth-largest on record.
“The rebound in export growth is no surprise given the collapse in trade at the end of 2008,” said Brian Jackson, an emerging-markets strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. “But this is still good news and reflects a real improvement in external demand.”
For the full year, China’s exports fell 16 percent and imports declined 11.2 per cent. The trade surplus was $196.06 billion, sliding for the first time since 2003 and falling short of 2008’s record $295.5 billion.
December’s numbers show the slump is over for China’s exporters, Huang Guohua, a statistics official with the customs bureau, said today in an interview broadcast on state television. That comment contrasts with Chinese leaders saying in the past month that a global economic recovery is not on a solid footing.
Chinese imports are being boosted by the nation’s strengthening recovery, manufacturers buying materials for processing into exports, and an increase in commodity prices. On the nation’s east coast, Qingdao Port Group Co is expanding wharves to handle iron-ore imports.
“Surging imports show that the economic stimulus policies are effectively boosting domestic demand, which also helps to drive the global economic recovery,” the customs bureau said in a statement.
For all of 2009, iron-ore imports surged 42 per cent from a year earlier, copper and its products soared 63 per cent, and aluminum and its products climbed 164 per cent, the data showed.
While Premier Wen Jiabao said December 27 that the nation will “absolutely not yield” to trading partners’ calls for currency gains, yuan forwards indicate that the government will allow appreciation of 3 per cent against the dollar in the next year. The yuan closed at 6.8275 per dollar on January 8.
Yuan forwards rose to their highest level in more than a month on January 8 after the central bank guided the increase in three-month bill yields. The currency gained 21 per cent in three years after a fixed exchange rate was scrapped in July 2005.
China surpassed Germany in 2007 to become the third-largest economy and is forecast to overtake Japan this year, assuming the No. 2 spot behind the US.
Germany shipped ¤734.6 billion ($1.05 trillion) of exports in the first 11 months of last year, the Federal Statistics Office said January 8. That compared with China’s $1.07 trillion over that period.