China trade soars
January 13, 2015
China's trade surplus swelled by nearly half in 2014, Beijing announced on Tuesday, but demand was weaker than expected overseas and this caused the world's second-largest economy to again miss its ambitious trade growth targets.
Exports rose by 6.1 percent to $2.34 trillion (1.94 trillion euros) on the year, while imports grew by a modest 0.4 percent to $1.96 trillion. That accounted for a trade surplus of $382 billion, or a whopping 47.2 percent increase over 2013.
Total trade in 2014 grew just 3.4 percent - far below the government's official target of 7.5 percent.
"The world economy recovered rather slowly and couldn't support China's trade growing at a high speed," said Zheng Yuesheng, a spokesman for the General Administration of Customs, which released the trade data.
Zheng attributed the record surplus to sinking commodity prices, which accounted for lower import values.
China wants to grow, but reality may get in the way
Monthly trade data from December showed exports rebounding 9.7 percent year-on-year in dollar-denominated terms as demand from a bullish United States economy offset weakness in the eurozone and Japan. Imports last month shrank slightly - 2.4 percent - a result of slow growth domestically.
But while exports in December were better than expected and imports fell far less than experts had forecast, Beijing still cautioned against impending obstacles to growth in the first quarter of the new year.
"We think the negative factors that crimped trade performance in 2014 will be sustained for a period of time," Zheng said.
Weak demand due to a slow global recovery, a faltering domestic property market and lower foreign direct investment in China could at least partially undermine the trade gains made in 2014.
Chinese imports of oil, iron ore, food and other goods fell to a five-year low in the quarter ending in September. That data has flown in the face of communist government officials who are trying to fortify the economy with increased consumer spending, seeing this as a more sustainable form of growth than trade and investment.
But China still took advantage of the low price of oil, importing 30.37 million tons of crude oil in December, or 7.15 million barrels per day - topping the 7 million mark for the first time.
cjc/sgb (AFP, AP, Reuters)