Looks like we may not be the only ones getting F'ed:
China May trade surplus down 10 percent on imports By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer
2 hours, 10 minutes ago
China's trade surplus shrank 10 percent in May from a year earlier, the second straight monthly decline, as the value of imports of crude oil and other raw materials surged, the government said Wednesday.
The $20.2 billion surplus for May was still relatively large — up from a $16.7 billion gap in April and $13.4 billion in March — and larger than analysts had predicted.
Imports ballooned 40 percent to $100.3 billion, the General Administration of Customs said.
Exports, meanwhile, rose 28 percent to $120.5 billion — still strong amid speculation that the slowdown in the U.S. economy would significantly erode export demand.
"It suggests that those saying that exports are collapsing are wrong," Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, said in a report Wednesday.
While exports of manufactured goods remains strong, weakness is showing up in textiles and other industries, he added.
However, China's trade gap with both the United States and the European Union grew in May compared with a year earlier. That's likely to rankle both trading partners, who have pushed for China to open itself up to more imports and make its currency more flexible. Critics claim authorities are keeping the yuan artificially weak to give Chinese exporters an advantage.
China's gap with the U.S. came to $14.3 billion in May, up from $12.6 billion in the same month a year ago. Imports from the U.S. jumped 26.3 percent to $6.9 billion, but they were far exceeded by China's $21.2 billion in exports, a 9.1 percent increase over May 2007.
China's surplus with the EU surged 28 percent to $12.7 billion from $9.9 billion a year ago.
But China's deficit with Japan nearly doubled in May to $3.1 billion.
The trade surplus for the first five months of the year was $78 billion, down 8.6 percent from the $85.7 billion surplus in January-May 2007. |
