BEIJING: China has overtaken Germany as the world’s biggest exporter, according to trade figures released by Chinese customs authorities.
The statistics showed that Chinese exports from January to November last year amounted to $1.07 trillion despite the world economic crisis. Experts said that Chinese exports exceed those of Germany in October.
“The figures show that in 2009 China became the largest exporter by a small margin,” said Ben Simpfendorfer of the Royal Bank of Scotland. In 2007 China took Germany’s place as the world’s third largest economy and the country is expected to overtake Japan this year, taking the No.2 spot behind the United States.
Between January and October last year China exported goods worth $957 billion, ahead of Germany’s $917 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported citing the Geneva-based Global Trade Information Services.
Meanwhile, China’s economy likely grew 8.5 percent in 2009 despite the global downturn, but the country still faces challenges this year, including the difficult task of driving demand, a senior official has said.
Growth is set to exceed the government’s eight-percent target as Beijing’s massive stimulus package “quickly turned around the slowdown momentum,” said Zhang Xiaoqiang, a vice chairman of China’s top economic planning agency.
The Chinese government has for years set the annual growth target at eight percent — the rate seen as the minimum necessary to create enough jobs to prevent social unrest in the vast country of 1.3 billion. Growth accelerated on the back of improving company profits, soaring investment, and booming domestic consumption, Zhang said in a speech posted Tuesday on the website of the National Development and Reform Commission.
But the Chinese economy however still faces many challenges to maintain a steady and fast expansion in 2010 due to constraints in boosting demand, overcapacity in some industries and fiercer international competition, he said.
“The trade environment outlook is no cause for optimism as foreign demand in the next year is unlikely to recover to the pre-crisis level given rife to trade protectionism,” Zhang said.
“China will face rising international competition and friction in trade and (the acquisition of) energy and resources, capital and technology in the post-crisis times.
China’s “economic development will be more vulnerable to global economic and financial turmoil,” he said. Zhang added that domestic demand growth would taper off as the effects of stimulus measures reached their limit.
China’s economy grew by 8.9 percent in the third quarter of 2009 — the fastest pace in a year — after expanding by 7.9 percent in the second quarter and 6.1 percent in the first, the slowest pace in more than a decade. Official full-year growth figures are normally released in late January.
Meanwhile, China’s central bank said Wednesday it aimed to keep inflation in check in 2010 while maintaining its pro-growth monetary policy as the world’s third-largest economy recovers from the financial crisis.
In a statement outlining its tasks for this year, the People’s Bank of China said it would adjust its policies “at appropriate times and by appropriate levels” based on economic and financial market changes in China and overseas.