China Oct export growth 5-month high
picked up in October from September. Exports to the European Union fell from a year earlier for the fifth month running but the slide was the smallest since June. Imports from Australia, China's biggest supplier of raw materials, fell 21.8 percent, the deepest fall since January 2009. The value of the imports was the lowest since February 2011.
Analysts said iron ore and coal purchases from Australia may have been dented by a week-long Chinese holiday in October, but the data underscored worries the trade outlook is uncertain at best.
Looking into November and December and considering the volatility in U.S. and European markets, as well as the recovery in domestic investment, we feel export growth will pull back, said Chen Hetian, an analyst at Rising Securities in Beijing.
Brisk export sales alongside flagging import shipments are both a political and economic problem for China.
Beijing wants domestic consumption to replace exports and investment as the key driver of growth. At the same time, China's major trade partners want it to import more to help right global economic imbalances.
Beijing has made good headway in cutting China's current account surplus to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product this year from 10.6 percent in 2007 and under a 4 percent bar deemed by Washington to be appropriate.
But the jump in October's trade surplus to $32 billion, the largest since January 2009 and well above forecasts for $26.9 billion, showed China still risks having exports driving too much of its growth.
SERIOUS OUTLOOK
Chen had
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