Arrest in slide of negative growth rates of T&G exports

13 Mar '09

2 min read

According to the latest data released by Customs, China's imports and exports reached US $266.77 billion in January-February this year, representing a year-on-year decline of 27.2 percent, of which, exports registered $155.33 billion, down 21.1 percent while imports marked $111.44 billion, down 34.2 percent.

Total import and export value of China's foreign trade completed $124.95 billion in February, dropping by 24.9 percent from the same period last year. In the same month exports fetched $64.9 billion, down 25.7 percent and imports stood at $60.05 billion, again down 24.1 percent.

In the first two months of this year, imports and exports done by foreign-invested enterprises achieved $146.35 billion and accounted for 54.9 percent of China's total import and export value over the same period, but also down by 28.4 percent. In the same period, trade surplus surged 59.6 percent to touch $43.89 billion.

The European Union remained China's largest trading partner, Sino-EU bilateral trade totaled $48.78 billion, down 20.2 percent; the United States was the second largest trading partner, total trade value recorded $39.43 billion, down 17.4 percent and Japan took the third place.

Even though influenced by the international financial crisis, export decline of some labor-intensive products was relatively smaller than overall export decline. In the first two months, China's exports of clothing and accessories accumulated $14.62 billion, down 11 percent and footwear exports totaled to $4.3 billion, only down 2.3 percent.

Experts believe that the increase of textile export tax rebate rate from 11 percent to 15 percent in most of the labour intensive industries like textiles, clothing and footwear has played a key role in arresting the slide in negative growth rates, vis-à-vis with those achieved in the same period of last year.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - China

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