China is world biggest exporter
Filed Under (World Economy) by fred on 11-01-2010
China overtook Germany as the world’s top exporter after December exports jumped 17.7 per cent for their first increase in 14 months, data showed yesterday, in another sign of China’s rise as a global economic force.
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Exports for the last month of 2009 were US$130.7 billion (US$1 = RM3.38), data from the General Administration of Customs showed. That raised total 2009 exports to US$1.2 trillion, ahead of the US$1.17 trillion for Germany forecast by its foreign trade organization, BGA.
China’s new status is largely symbolic but reflects the ability of its resilient, low-cost manufacturers to keep selling abroad despite a slump in worldwide consumer demand due to the financial crisis.
December’s rebound was an “important turning point” for exporters, a customs agency economist, Huang Guohua, said on state television, CCTV.
“We can say that China’s export enterprises have completely emerged from their all-time low in exports,” Huang said.
Stronger foreign sales of Chinese goods could help to drive the country’s recovery after demand plunged in 2008, forcing thousands of factories to close and throwing millions of laborers out of work.
Boosted by a US$586 billion stimulus, China’s economic expansion accelerated to 8.9 per cent for the third quarter of 2009 and the government says full-year growth should be 8.3 per cent.
Economists and Germany’s national chamber of commerce said earlier the country was likely to lose its longtime crown as top exporter.
