Chinese trade goes bananas

Friday 8 February 2013

Sorry this one is a bit late. Got stuck on a plane. Chinese trade data is on for January and shows some blowout figures with exports up 25% from a year earlier, and imports rising and astonishing 28.8%

And if that makes you skeptical , it should. It’s all the result of Chinese New Year shifting months. Adjusted for the number of working days, exports rose 12.4% in January from a year earlier while imports increased 3.4 percent, the customs administration said.

The trade surplus exploded to $29 billion.

Never mind!

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.