China's July Foreign Trade Shows Sign of Upturn
Year:2009 ISSUE:24
COLUMN:M & A, BUSINESS & TRADE
Click:216    DateTime:Aug.26,2009
China's July Foreign Trade Shows Sign of Upturn   

By Lily Wang     
China's foreign trade shrank 19.4% from a year earlier to US$200.21 billion this July, the General Administration of Customs released on August 11th.
    Exports fell 23% year-on-year to US$105.42 billion, while imports dropped 14.9% to US$94.79 billion.
    However, both exports and imports this July saw an increase on monthly basis, being 10.4% and 8.7% respectively, indicating an increase for five continuous months since this March.
    The month-on-month increase in foreign trade indicated the government's policy to boost domestic demand and stabilize foreign trade had taken effective, an analyst expressed. It was also driven by domestic exporters' efforts to cut costs and develop new markets.
   The customs says the country's foreign trade will continue to show a recovery trend from month to month in the remaining time of 2009.
    The aggregate foreign trade for the first seven months of 2009 dropped 22.7% to US$1 146.71 billion, of which US$627.1 billion for exports, down 22% year on year and US$519.61 billion for imports, down 23.6%. The trade surplus amounted to US$107.49 billion in the past seven months, down 12.4% from a year ago, according to the customs' report.
    The European Union remained the largest trade partner of China in the first seven months, with a bilateral trade volume of US$192.73 billion, down 20.7% year-on-year. The US was the second largest trade partner, with a bilateral trade volume of US$158.68 billion, down 16.1%, followed by Japan with US$119.9 billion, down 22.6%. Furthermore, the bilateral trade with ASEAN fell 22.4% to US$107.43 billion, and that with India was sharply down 30.2%, being US$23.39 billion. Among the top ten trade partners, the bilateral trade volume between China and Australia saw a smallest decrease of 8.6%, with a drop of 5.2% in import.
    Exports of labor-intensive products, including garments, furniture, bags and shoes, saw a modest drop in the first seven months. The exports of plastic products fell 7% year on year to US$7.82 billion in the past seven months. Exports of mechanical and electric products declined 20.8% from a year ago to US$367.71 billion.
    In parallel, China's general articles imports saw an increase in the past seven months. China imported 360 million tons of iron ores and 26.48 million tons of soybean respectively, up 31.8% and 27.7% year-on-year, and imported 13.83 million tons of primary plastic products, up 26.6%.
    In July alone, China exported 430 000 tons of crude oil and 2.15 million tons of oil products respectively. Meanwhile, China imported 19.63 million tons of crude oil and 3.80 million tons of oil products.