China Customs says clear slowdown in non-processing trade surplus

Tag: China shoes export

China's trade surplus in the non-processing trade sector fell sharply in the first half of the year due to slowing export growth and sharply rising imports, the General Administration of Customs said Thursday.

The comments, which were attached to the official June trade statistics, come amid growing calls for the government to loosen policy to help thousands of small exporters struggling against rising costs and falling demand.

"So far this year, general (non-processing) trade imports have risen sharply and the (non-processing) trade surplus has fallen markedly," customs said in its monthly release.

The customs administration said that exports from the non-processing trade sector rose 24.8 pct in the first half to 306.4 bln usd while imports were up 48.7 pct at 290.44 bln. That implies a trade surplus of only 15.96 bln for the non-processing trade sector, according to Market News International calculations. This compares with the overall trade surplus of 99.03 bln during the first half of the year.

Processing trade refers to the import of semi-finished goods for assembly and re-export.

The customs administration said that the export growth rate of "traditional goods" is slowing, noting that clothing exports were up just 3.4 pct in the first half while shoe exports rose 12.5 pct and textile exports 26.8 pct.

Raw material imports sped up in the first half, with average prices rising sharply, the customs administration noted.

China's overall trade surplus hit 21.35 bln usd in June, the largest monthly surplus this year but still 20.7 pct below that in June 2007. The total surplus in the first half fell 11.8 pct year-on-year from the 112.52 bln usd surplus in the first six months of last year.