Latest data released yesterday by the General Administration of Customs showed that China's trade surplus increased from US$22.45 billion in May to $26.91 billion in June, a record high as far as monthly trade surplus is concerned.
From January to June this year, China's foreign trade volume amounted to $980.93 billion, close to the $1-trillion mark. Export and import amount is expected to exceed $2 trillion for the whole year.
Compared to the first half of 2006, import and export growth in the same period this year increased by 23.3 percent. Of this, exports amounted to $546.73 billion, an increase of 27.6 percent; imports were $ 434.2 billion, an increase of 18.2 percent.
This year's half yearly accumulated trade surplus reached $112.5 billion, a year-on-year growth of more than 83.1 percent.
June's import and export value achieved $179.63 billion, an increase of 21.3 percent. Of this, exports were $103.27 billion, an increase of 27.1 percent whereas imports were $76.36 billion, a growth of 14.2 percent.
Analysts believe the sharp rise in June's trade surplus is because of the adjustment made in export tax rebate policy. On June 18, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration had announced the “notification of lowering part of export tax rebate rates”, saying that new export rebate adjustment would be implemented on 2,831 types of commodities from July 1 onwards. These commodities account for about 37 percent of the total goods listed in customs tariff.
Some experts, however, think that the huge surplus was mainly due to larger decline in import growth. Data showed that export increase in June was same as that in May — at 28.7 percent — while import growth in June presented a decrease of 4.9 percentage points from 19.1 percent in May.
Experts say when export growth remains strong and import growth slows down, it certainly leads to a record-high trade surplus.
Fibre2fashion News Desk, China
marketing@alchempro.com
