JUST how worrying are the figures, published on Wednesday December 10th, showing that China’s exports and imports plunged in November? Exports fell by 2.2% last month from a year ago; imports plummeted by an astonishing 17.9%. One analyst sums up the news as “a shock figure”.
The gloom is spread all over the place. Exports dropped across all big traded goods and all parts of the world. Exports to America fell by 6.1%; those to the ASEAN countries, which had grown by 21.5% in October, fell by 2.4%. The faster decline in imports meant that ChinaÂ’s monthly trade surplus reached a record $40.1 billion. Exports last fell in 2001.
An estimated 130m people have moved from the countryside to the cities, many for jobs in factories that make goods for export. Zhang Ping, the countryÂ’s top planner, has given warning of the risk of social instability arising from massive unemployment.
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