China’s recent economic slump may be nearing its end. This past August, China’s industrial output, manufacturing, and exports all exceeded their expected growth. After suffering two disappointing quarters, this is good news for the Chinese economy. Shipments of exports rose 7.2% in August, though it was only predicted to rise 5.5%. This news came just days after China’s manufacturing output reached a 16-month high.
In the past few weeks, China has made steps to give a boost to the export and manufacturing sectors, and they seemingly have worked. One of these steps was the movement to suspend value-added tax and turnover tax for small businesses with monthly sales less than 20,000 yuan. This was a move designed to help many small businesses and boost employment.
Joey Chew, an economist for Barclays, stated, “Better exports in July and August reflect improving external demand.” Analysts also believe that the global economy is looking at a reasonable second half recovery, which will hopefully in turn help sustain the economic growth that China is experiencing in manufacturing and exports.
This article was short and concise, and it is exciting to see manufacturing and exports exceed their forecasted growth. However, growth in Chinese exports and manufacturing suggests that the United States, as well as other countries across the globe, could be losing faith in local manufacturing and industrial projects and importing from China, most likely because of low cost and high productivity. It will be interesting to see if the growth continues for the second half of the year.
Source: “Chinese Exports Rise More than Forecast in August.” BBC News. BBC, 08 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.
So rising exports may help China, but to dig further we would need to know how much value production (for electronics, assembly) is added inside China. Or to rephrase, despite high dollar (well, RMB) values, relative to total Chinese GDP, is trade really that important relative to domestic demand?
Still, it can’t be bad for the US if the rest of the world is on average growing. We are after all more tied to Asia than to Europe (even if the W&L curriculum is still anchored to the world as of the early post-WWII era, focused on the Atlantic and not the Pacific).
Look though at trade data for the US: over the past couple quarters exports are rising, imports static. Might that have something to do with the graphs I’ve anchored to the top of the blog?