China’s trade surplus widened sharply in December, exceeding expectations as exports remained resilient while imports weakened, although full-year figures pointed to an overall narrowing trend for the Chinese trade gap.
December’s trade surplus climbed to $16.52 billion U.S., the General Administration of Customs said Tuesday, with the result beating expectations of $7.8 billion U.S., according to the median forecast in a Dow Jones Newswires survey.
The figures showed December’s exports climbed 13.4% from a year earlier, following a 13.8% rise in November, and beating expectations of a 12.5% rise according to the Dow Jones Newswires poll.
Imports were up 11.8% for the month, well below a forecast 18% rise and cooling from November’s 22.1% rise.
Experts said that some exports may have been shifted forward because of 2012’s earlier-than-usual Chinese New Year, which is due to fall in late January this year. This, they said, may be providing an artificially upbeat view of the health of global demand.
IHS also said the higher demand could be prove temporary, cautioning of "slower final demand from advanced economies" as euro-zone weakness feeds through the global economy.
French bank Societe Generale said some of the slowdown seen in the import growth figures might be explained by weaker commodity prices as prices of crude oil and iron ore generally fell in December.
In fact, when applying a seasonally adjusted approach to the figures, December exports eased 2.3% from a month earlier, while imports were largely flat.
"The seeming stable export growth was mostly due to the relatively soft figure in December 2010," SocGen analysts said.
For the full year, the trade surplus totalled $155.14 billion U.S., representing a drop of 14.5% from 2010 levels.
The figure was the weakest annual result in three years, and came on the heels of a record $298.1-billion U.S. surplus in 2008.
The customs bureau said in Tuesday’s statement that the moderation in the full-year figures was evidence of "more balanced trade," particularly in the second half of 2011, as growth in imports outpaced growth in exports by 4.6 percentage points.
Indeed, IHS analysts said China’s trade would likely continue to shrink in coming years, amid an overall slowdown in the growth rate of foreign trade.
The euro zone remained China’s top trading partner, with two-way shipments valued at $567.21 billion U.S. in 2011, a rise of 18.3% from 2010 levels. Trade with the U.S. totaled $446.65 billion U.S., a rise of 15.9% from year-earlier levels.
Chinese trade grew at the fastest pace with Southeast Asia, where shipments for the year totaled $362.85 billion U.S., a gain of 23.9% for the year.
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