HONG KONG — Exports from China grew just 2.9 percent in November, far less than analysts had expected, highlighting the key role that home-grown stimulus and reforms will play in China’s renewed acceleration at a time when the trajectory of global demand remains highly uncertain.
After slowing sharply this year, China’s economy has begun to speed up again in the past couple of months. Data released Sunday reinforced the view that China was likely to avert a sudden, sharp slowdown — a “hard landing” — at least for now. Industrial production and retail sales grew 10.1 percent and 14.9 percent, respectively, in November from a year earlier.
The modest rebound of the past few months has been widely attributed to a combination of stronger export demand and the effect of stimulus measures the government introduced this year.
Trade data released by the Customs Department on Monday, however, showed export growth had sagged again in November: the 2.9 percent figure fell far short of the 9 percent the economists polled by Reuters had expected. It also represented a sharp slowdown from the 11.6 percent and 9.9 percent recorded during the previous two months.
Imports also disappointed, by staying flat from year ago.
Combined, the data from Sunday and Monday painted a picture of a recovery that is solidifying, but that nonetheless faces considerable hurdles.
The looming prospect of U.S. tax increases and spending cuts, and the festering debt crisis in Europe, have long been flagged by economists as major risk factors for the recovery in countries, such as China, that derive a large part of their growth from U.S. and European demand.
“Without the strengthening of the two key Western markets, the sustainability of the exports sector’s rebound is questionable,” Xianfang Ren, a China economist at IHS Global Insight in Beijing, said in a research note. “The extremely weak exports data have thrown in one more piece of evidence about the fragility of the recovery.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/business/global/chinese-exports-slow-even-as-economy-recovers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss