China: China's Export Growth Plummets, Bittersweet?

Courtesy of Newsy.com

BY WEN YAN

China's economy is slowing down according to data released by the country’s customs bureau. Those numbers suggest China's export growth dropped and its trade surplus narrowed in September. CCTV has the data.

“China's exports and imports fell below forecast in September, creating a narrowed trade surplus of around 14.5 billion US dollars... Exports increased more than 17% from a year ago, down from the 24.5% rise in August.”

Financial Times chalks it up to the global economic recession.

"China is the world's largest goods exporter and its trade fluctuations often provide clues to the health of the global economy. Trade with Crisis-hit Europe, China's single biggest partner, showed the most obvious slowdown last month."

And the U.S. Senate just approved a bill this week that seeks to punish countries that artificially lower currency -- aimed at China. A market strategist told CNBC this just gave Beijing another reason to reject outside pressure.

Brian Jackson: “You know they can say that, Look, our currency has sort of stored against dollar over the last couple of months, but in trade of wider terms, it actually appreciated quite a bit. So we are moving the average direction that Washington wants, they are going to say we will do whatever we've paced rather than being dictated to by external pressure."

The New York Times says even if there's been a decrease in China's export growth, hey, it's still growth.

"Both exports and imports still rose solidly last month — up 17.1 percent and 20.9 percent, respectively, compared with the levels of a year earlier, showing that trade had by no means collapsed. "

The Economic Times says it's groundless to assume other countries would benefit from China's decline. Actually it might be just the opposite.

"Economies such as Australia and Japan that supply raw materials and components to China also might suffer because its export manufacturers account for half of Chinese imports and are cutting orders. "

Transcript by Newsy