The 56% rebound - Is China back?

The China export crash was expected. The recovery is better than I thought it would be but after something has fallen so far it is relatively simple to achieve large rebounds but this is impressive.

Will it last? Doubtful. The stimulus package is in the front line again. It has a lot to answer for. My posts on the metal stocks and the empty city are also relevant here.

China’s economy rebounds with 56% annual rise in imports [Times Online]

China’s economic juggernaut showed the strength of its recovery with exports rising for the first time in 14 months and imports soaring by a staggering 56 per cent in December from a year earlier.

Chinese government economists, usually cautious in their assessments, hailed the strength of trade in December — albeit from a low base rate after exports slumped a year ago.

Huang Guohua, a customs agency economist, said that the December rebound marked an “important turning point”. He added: “We can say that China’s export enterprises have completely emerged from their all-time low in exports.”

China’s exports leapt 17.7 per cent in December from a year earlier, far outstripping the expected 4 per cent rise to break 13 months of decline, the Customs office figures showed.

The surge in export trade was matched by an even bigger leap in December's imports, which rose 55.9 per cent year-on-year to $112.3 billion (£70 billion), much more than the expected 31.0 per cent rise. That squeezed China’s trade surplus down to $18.4 billion compared with $19.1 billion in November and $39 billion in December 2008.

That rise reflected China’s stronger economic growth, driven by a 4 trillion yuan (£400 billion) stimulus package unveiled in November 2008 and by demand for imported raw materials and consumer goods at a time when demand in the United States and other foreign markets is weaker.

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With China’s trade data for all of 2009 now out, the nation's crowning as the 2009 export champion is expected to be confirmed when Germany releases full-year trade figures on February 9. From January to November, Chinese exports were worth $1.07 trillion, while data from the German national statistics office on Friday showed that exports from the European heavyweight amounted to $1.05 trillion.

The robust figures from China echo similar rebounds in South Korea and Taiwan, which reported growth of 46.9 per cent and 33.7 per cent respectively.

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