China March Trade Deficit May Complicate Yuan Issue
BEIJING—China ran its first monthly trade deficit in six years in March, which could fuel fears the country's export recovery remains wobbly and complicate any decision by Beijing to let the yuan appreciate.
China's trade deficit in March was $7.24 billion, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday, citing data from the General Administration of Customs. It isn't unusual for Xinhua, China's state media, to release the trade figures first. Data from Customs had been expected Saturday.
The deficit was much bigger than the median forecast of $280 million in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of 13 economists.
China's exports last month grew 24.3% from a year earlier, slower than February's 45.7% on-year gain, while at the same time imports rose 66%, sharply up from the 44.7% on-year growth in February.
The deficit, the first since April 2004, came after Chinese government officials hinted in recent weeks that China likely imported more than it sold abroad in March.
Despite the March deficit, China's trade surplus in the first quarter totaled $14.49 billion, but shrinking 76.7% from the same time a year earlier, the report said. Running surpluses remains the broader trend for China this year, economists have said.
China's domestic economy has been on the mend and China is due to issue its first quarter gross domestic product data on April 15. Chinese policymakers have been sounding warnings about the dangers of asset price bubbles and inflationary pressures intensifying in the domestic economy amid the return of trade and capital inflows.
In a short, public statement released by the U.S. and China after Thursday's meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and China Vice Premier Wang Qishan in Beijing, the two sides said they had exchanged views on bilateral and global issues. The last-minute meeting, which was announced only on Wednesday, was the latest in conciliatory gestures in recent weeks by Beijing and Washington to mend strained ties and that has given Chinese policymakers room to come to a consensus on the yuan exchange rate mechanism.
The Chinese currency has been effectively pegged against the dollar since mid-2008, following three years of gradual appreciation, due to the global financial crisis. In early March, People's Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan indicated that the de facto peg to the dollar was a response to the global financial crisis that would be exited at some point.作者: 我的大哥哥 时间: 2010-4-10 16:45
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