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BEIJING: China’s trade surplus this year has already scorched past
the record 12-month figure of 2006, official data showed Friday,
giving further ammunition to critics of the Asian giant’s currency
policies.
The accumulated surplus from January to
September was $185.7 billion, the customs bureau said, exceeding the
$177.5 billion for all of last year.
After three record monthly trade surplus figures
in June, July and August, September’s $23.9-billion surplus was
the fourth-largest ever, the customs figures showed. It was also up
56 percent from a year earlier.
“There will definitely be pressure on the
currency to rise in value,” said Chen Jijun, a Beijing-based
economist with Citic Securities.
The United States and other foreign critics
argue China’s currency, the yuan, is kept artificially low to make
Chinese exporters more competitive than they would otherwise be.
China de-linked the yuan from the US dollar in
2005 and has since allowed it to rise about 10 percent against the
greenback, a pace many in the United States consider far too slow.
Some in the US Congress have called for
sanctions to punish China over its currency policies, but
administration officials have opted for negotiations and occasional
complaints at the World Trade Organization.
On Thursday, Washington filed its fourth WTO
complaint against China, challenging Beijing’s restrictions on
imports of products of copyright-intensive industries such as films,
music and books.
The US Treasury’s undersecretary for
international affairs, David McCormick, argued late last month that
greater flexibility in the yuan’s rate would not damage China’s
economic growth.
“What currency flexibility will do for China
is support—and in fact be a necessary component of—a growth
strategy that brings higher consumption to Chinese households and
more balanced, harmonious and sustainable growth.”
However, China’s central bank governor
reiterated later there was no timetable for making the yuan fully
flexible.
Foreign criticism reflects not just general
dissatisfaction with the nation’s currency policies, but also
practices pursued in individual sectors.
This was highlighted in Friday’s customs data,
which showed that in the first nine months, steel products exports
rose 73.3 percent year on year, while imports declined 8.2 percent.
European steelmakers have become sharply
critical of China, preparing to file a complaint with the European
Commission alleging that the nation’s steelmakers are exporting
prices below production cost.
China, which was still the world’s biggest
importer of steel in 2004, has become the world’s biggest exporter
three years later and now accounts for 34 percent of the world’s
steel production.
But with the focus on China’s exports, some
economists argued more attention ought to be paid to the role played
by imports in bringing about the large surplus.
Exports in September rose 22.8 percent year on
year to $112.5 billion, but imports were up by a more moderate 16.1
percent at $88.6 billion, the customs bureau said.
“The rather high trade surplus in September is
linked to a modest rise in imports,” said Li Huiyong, a
Shanghai-based economist with Shenyin Wanguo Securities.
“I tend to think this has come about as a
number of local enterprises have started making products that
substitute goods that previously had to be imported.”
--AFP
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