China's foreign trade situation could still be challenging: Ministry of Commerce

BEIJING: China's foreign trade could still face a challenging situation in 2013 despite a better performance in January as overseas demand remained sluggish, Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said today.

January data showed that foreign trade has further stabilised thanks to a range of pro-growth measures, although the stabilisation does not necessarily signify a sharp increase or a rebound due to more working days, MOC spokesman Shen Danyang told a press conference.

According to official data, China's foreign trade surged 26.7 per cent year-on-year to 2.17 trillion yuan ($345.5 billion) in January. The rise was bigger than the 10.2 per cent growth seen in December.

Exports and imports rose 25 per cent and 28.8 per cent from a year earlier, respectively.

There were 22 working days in January, five days more than last year, when the seven-day Spring Festival holiday fell during the first month of the year.

After adjusting for seasonal factors, foreign trade went up 8.1 per cent year-on-year in January.

Furthermore, on a monthly basis, January's trade volume dropped 5.8 per cent from December, even with one more working day, according to customs data.

Shen said the January data is in line with expectations. Due to the Spring Festival holiday, the year-on-year increase in China's foreign trade might narrow in February, especially compared with the near 30 per cent growth seen in February last year, Shen said.

In response to reports that China has overtaken the US as the world's biggest trader, Shen reiterated that China's total foreign trade fell $15.64 billion short in comparison with the United States according to measurements adopted by the WTO.

The WTO will release its official global foreign trade rankings around late February or early March, the ministry added.