CHINA S exports rose 25.1 percent in September from a year earlier as imports climbed 24.1 percent, leaving a trade surplus of US$16.88 billion, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said on its Web site yesterday.
The trade surplus for September capped the largest quarterly excess since the financial crisis in 2008 as pressure mounts for a stronger yuan. The third-quarter trade gap was US$65.6 billion, the most since a US$114 billion surplus in the final three months of 2008.
Yesterday s numbers are unlikely to do much to reduce international pressure on China to move faster on the currency, said Brian Jackson, an emerging-markets strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong.
China s surplus may gradually narrow as the nation s sustained growth momentum boosts imports and external demand wanes amid a slowdown in developed economies, said Dariusz Kowalczyk, a Hong Kong-based economist and strategist at Credit Agricole, before yesterday s release. Kowalczyk said smaller surpluses as a proportion of gross domestic product imply slower gains in the yuan.
China s foreign trade is notably better than pre-crisis levels, the GAC said in yesterday s statement.
September export growth was less than the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey for a 26 percent gain, and compared with a 34.4 percent jump in August. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said that a slowdown in year-on-year trade growth was because of a high base for comparison.
Import growth was close to the median forecast for a 25 percent advance following a 35.2 percent increase in August.
China s economy has rebounded from the global recession, with the Shanghai Composite Index this week entering a so-called bull market, rising 20 percent from a July low. The measure remains down for 2010.
Investors and companies are paying a record premium to obtain yuan in Hong Kong s offshore market, taking advantage of looser restrictions to stock up on a currency appreciating at the fastest pace in five years.
The world has to be patient at the pace of yuan gains, Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Beijing University, wrote in a commentary published by Bloomberg News.
(SD-Agencies)
