HONG KONG — Chinese exports showed only modest growth in May, rising just 1 percent from a year earlier, officials said Saturday, an increase that was much lower than analysts’ expectations.
In April, the increase was 14.7 percent, a figure that was believed to have been artificially inflated. Before Saturday’s figure came out, analysts expected Chinese exports to have risen at least 7 percent in May. Concern is rising about the sputtering Chinese economy and tightening liquidity.
The European Union, China’s biggest trading partner, remains mired in a stubborn economic downturn, while in the United States, China’s next-largest export market, the Federal Reserve has recently been sending signals it may start curtailing its stimulative monetary policies.
China’s figures showed it had a trade surplus of $20.4 billion in May, up from $19.3 billion, as imports declined 0.3 percent, the Customs Administration said. The drop in imports — however slight — was a possible sign of weakness in the domestic economy.
Chinese stocks declined last week, their first weekly decline in six weeks, amid signs of tightening liquidity within China. A clearer picture of the Chinese economy is expected Sunday, when the government releases data on retail sales, industrial output and inflation.
Economists had expected the May figures to show a slowdown, as the government has begun a campaign to prevent companies from overstating their exports.
Many businesses are believed to have done so in March and April as a way to bypass currency controls and bring more money into the country to speculate on further appreciation of China’s renminbi.
The main evidence for such strategies lay in official statistics showing soaring exports to Hong Kong and bonded export zones on the mainland even as exports to the rest of the world from these places remained weak.
Louis Kuijs, an economist in the Hong Kong office of the Royal Bank of Scotland, had estimated in May that more than half of the officially reported growth of 14.7 percent in April from a year earlier was the result of companies’ manipulating their statistics to place bets on the Chinese currency.
The true rate of export growth in April, without the effects of these strategies, was more like 5.7 percent. The sharp slowdown in export growth in May “in part reflects the impact of a clampdown by the government on firms dressing up financial inflows as exports,” Mr. Kuijs said in an e-mail on Saturday.
Chinese customs data compiled by CEIC Data in Hong Kong showed that the mainland’s exports to Hong Kong were up only 7.7 percent in May from a year earlier. In April, they had been up 57.2 percent from the same month last year, and in March they had been up 92.9 percent.
Changing expectations about China’s currency — fewer businesspeople now expect further appreciation — may have also reduced the incentive for companies to overstate exports, Mr. Kuijs said.
nytimes.com
In April, the increase was 14.7 percent, a figure that was believed to have been artificially inflated. Before Saturday’s figure came out, analysts expected Chinese exports to have risen at least 7 percent in May. Concern is rising about the sputtering Chinese economy and tightening liquidity.
The European Union, China’s biggest trading partner, remains mired in a stubborn economic downturn, while in the United States, China’s next-largest export market, the Federal Reserve has recently been sending signals it may start curtailing its stimulative monetary policies.
China’s figures showed it had a trade surplus of $20.4 billion in May, up from $19.3 billion, as imports declined 0.3 percent, the Customs Administration said. The drop in imports — however slight — was a possible sign of weakness in the domestic economy.
Chinese stocks declined last week, their first weekly decline in six weeks, amid signs of tightening liquidity within China. A clearer picture of the Chinese economy is expected Sunday, when the government releases data on retail sales, industrial output and inflation.
Economists had expected the May figures to show a slowdown, as the government has begun a campaign to prevent companies from overstating their exports.
Many businesses are believed to have done so in March and April as a way to bypass currency controls and bring more money into the country to speculate on further appreciation of China’s renminbi.
The main evidence for such strategies lay in official statistics showing soaring exports to Hong Kong and bonded export zones on the mainland even as exports to the rest of the world from these places remained weak.
Louis Kuijs, an economist in the Hong Kong office of the Royal Bank of Scotland, had estimated in May that more than half of the officially reported growth of 14.7 percent in April from a year earlier was the result of companies’ manipulating their statistics to place bets on the Chinese currency.
The true rate of export growth in April, without the effects of these strategies, was more like 5.7 percent. The sharp slowdown in export growth in May “in part reflects the impact of a clampdown by the government on firms dressing up financial inflows as exports,” Mr. Kuijs said in an e-mail on Saturday.
Chinese customs data compiled by CEIC Data in Hong Kong showed that the mainland’s exports to Hong Kong were up only 7.7 percent in May from a year earlier. In April, they had been up 57.2 percent from the same month last year, and in March they had been up 92.9 percent.
Changing expectations about China’s currency — fewer businesspeople now expect further appreciation — may have also reduced the incentive for companies to overstate exports, Mr. Kuijs said.
nytimes.com
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