CHINA’S FOREIGN TRADE IN SEPTEMBER

CHINA EXPORTS EXCEED ESTIMATES, EASING CONCERN ON SLUMP RISK

Bloomberg News

Bloomberg, October 13, 2012

China’s exports grew at the fastest pace in three months in September, easing concern that the global economy is heading for the first recession since 2009.

Sales abroad increased 9.9 percent from a year earlier, the customs administration said today in Beijing. That was more than a 2.7 percent gain in August and a 5.5 percent median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 35 economists. Imports gained 2.4 percent, leaving a $27.67 billion trade surplus.

The International Monetary Fund warned this week of an alarmingly high risk of a deeper global slowdown unless officials in the U.S. and Europe address threats to their economies. China’s widening trade surplus may provide ammunition to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has pledged to designate China a currency manipulator if elected.

“Recession in the euro zone and the possible fiscal cliff in the U.S. will likely cap the upside in the months ahead,”Ding Shuang, a Hong Kong-based economist with Citigroup Inc., said before the release, referring to looming U.S. spending cuts and tax increases.

Today’s data may reduce pressure on Premier Wen Jiabao to step up policy easing ahead of a transfer of power to a new generation of leaders that starts next month. The People’s Bank of China has refrained from cutting interest rates since July, in contrast with its counterparts in South Korea, Brazil and Australia.

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