Macroperu Continua el Descenso de las Exportaciones de China

Contunua el desplome del Comercio Internacional. Las exportaciones de China desciendieron en febrero 25 puntos porcentuales; sus importaciones 24 puntos porcentuales.

• Font Size:DecreaseIncrease
• Print Page:Print

Terence Poon | March 11, 2009

Article from: Dow Jones Newswires

CHINA'S export and import levels fell sharply for the fourth consecutive month in February.

A truck travels through the Yangshan Deepwater port in Shanghai, China. Picture: Bloomberg

Exports fell by a wider margin than in January, government data showed today.

February's exports fell 25.7 per cent from a year earlier to $US64.9 billion ($100.5 billion).

"This is clearly worse than expected," said Robert Subbaraman, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Nomura International.

Imports dropped 24.1 per cent to $US60.1 billion, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

The decline in exports steepened from January's 17.5 per cent fall, while the dive in imports actually eased from January's 43.1 per cent drop.

China's trade surplus in February totalled $US4.84 billion, down from $US39.1 billion in January.

The median forecast of six economists in a Dow Jones Newswires survey was for a 6.7 per cent drop in exports, a 29.8 per cent fall in imports, and a trade surplus of $US29.5 billion in February.

In the January-February period, exports fell 21.1 per cent from a year earlier, while imports dropped 34.2 per cent. The trade surplus for the period totalled $US43.89 billion.

Still, there were signs that Beijing's 4 trillion yuan ($925 billion) stimulus program was being felt, as fixed-asset investment (FAI) in China's urban areas rose more than expected in the January-February period on a spike in central government investment.

The National Bureau of Statistics said urban FAI jumped 26.5 per cent to 1.028 trillion yuan in the first two months of this year, compared with the same period last year, outstripping last year's 26.1 per cent rise and well above the median 19.8 per cent increase that had been forecast by five economists surveyed earlier by Dow Jones Newswires.

Investment in central government projects soared 40.3 per cent to 107.0 billion yuan in January-February, compared with a 29.6 per cent increase for all of 2008.

Investment in local government projects jumped 25.1 per cent to 920.6 billion yuan for the same period, compared with a 25.7 per cent increase for all of last year.

The January-February data, which wasn't broken down for the individual months, is the first indication of the trend for domestic investment this year since Beijing launched its stimulus program in November; it will run through 2010.

A Goldman Sachs economists' report said: "Being aware of the policy-lag issue, the Government requested firms that received direct government stimulus funding to spend it as soon as possible, which is consistent with the rebound in the sales volume reported by capital goods producers in recent weeks."

It said the Government's stimulus measures should show a "significant impact" on FAI growth more in the second quarter.

Additional reporting: AFP

__._,_.___

Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic

Messages | Links | Polls | Members | Calendar

Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

Recent Activity

Visit Your Group

Give Back

Yahoo! for Good

Get inspired

by a good cause.

Y! Toolbar

Get it Free!

easy 1-click access

to your groups.

Yahoo! Groups

Start a group

in 3 easy steps.

Connect with others.

.

__,_._,___

--
http://www.betaggarcian.blogspot.com/

Fwd: Macroperu Descenso Masivo de las Exportaciones Chinas

China hit by massive drop in exports

By Geoff Dyer in Beijing

Published: March 11 2009 03:30 | Last updated: March 11 2009 14:27

Chinese exports slumped 25.7 per cent in February as the collapse in global demand caught up with the country's exporters and overshadowed a sharp rise in domestic investment.

China's exports have decreased since November, but until last month the rate of decline had been much slower than in other Asian countries with large export sectors.

Economists said the headline figure for last month, which was already much worse than expected, probably masked an even steeper decline given that there was a shorter number of working days in February 2008 due to new-year holidays.

"Weakness in final demand has fed along the Asian supply chain and is only now having its full impact on China," said Mark Williams at Capital Economics. Taking into account holidays, he said, the real decline in last month's exports was around 40 per cent.

If such a rapid deterioration in exports continues the government will face ever-louder demands from Chinese companies to depreciate the currency.

However, analysts said that if the drop in the trade surplus continued, having collapsed from $39.1bn in January to $4.84bn last month, international pressure to move in the other direction and appreciate the renminbi would weaken. Few economists expect China to move into a trade deficit this year, however some said they might scale back projections for the size of the likely trade surplus.

After dropping 43 per cent in January, imports fell by 24 per cent last month, which some analysts said was a sign that the government's fiscal stimulus measures were beginning to have an impact.

Figures for fixed asset investment for the first two months of the year were also much higher than expected, rising 26.5 per cent against the same period the year before, compared to 21.9 per cent in December.

Within those figures, transport investment – one of the priorities of the fiscal stimulus plan – rose 210 per cent over the same period the year before, while property investment was up only 1 per cent, a sign of the continued weakness in the housing market.

Andy Rothman, economist at CLSA in Shanghai, said that government spending on infrastructure was likely to accelerate further over the next few months. "We expect this program to gain economic traction in March or April when project offices will have been established," he said. "By late March, it is warm enough to dig holes and pour concrete across most of the country."

As well as dramatic increases in bank lending in recent months, the government said cement output increased 17 per cent in January and February and car sales rose 11 per cent in February according to JD Power, encouraging some observers to predict that domestic demand was already recovering.

"China will still have one of the highest, if not the highest growth rate of any major country in 2009," said Richard Yorke, chief executive of HSBC in China. Although a lot of the fiscal stimulus measures announced by the government were already in the budget for the next two years, "that is one reason why the Chinese economy will be able to implement the stimulus package so rapidly, because many cities and provinces had already planned for infrastructure projects over the next few years", he said.

Additional reporting by Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

__._,_.___

Macroperu El Orden Temporal de los Ciclos Económicos

Business Cycle: Temporal Order

by CalculatedRisk on 3/08/2009 03:56:00 PM

I've written extensively about using housing as a leading indicator for recessions and recoveries. Professor Leamer of the UCLA Anderson Forecast presented a very readable paper on this topic at the 2007 Jackson Hole conference: Housing and the Business Cycle

In that paper, Leamer outlined the temporal order of a typical business cycle:

The temporal ordering of the spending weakness is: residential investment, consumer durables, consumer nondurables and consumer services before the recession, and then, once the recession officially commences, business spending on the short-lived assets, equipment and software, and, last, business spending on the long-lived assets, offices and factories. The ordering in the recovery is exactly the same.

I think this order can be simplified as follows (with employment added):

When Weakness Typically Starts

Pre-Recession	Coincident with Recession	Lags Start of Recession
Residential Investment	PCE	Investment, non-residential Structures
	Investment, Equipment & Software
	Unemployment

When I first started writing about the housing bubble - and the then coming housing bust - I pointed out that we should be very concerned because housing slumps typically lead the economy into recessions. It happened once again.

Housing usually leads the economy out of recessions too. The second table shows a simplified typical temporal order for emerging from a recession.

When Recovery Typically Starts

During Recession	Lags End of Recession	Significantly Lags End of Recession
Residential Investment	Investment, Equipment & Software	Investment, non-residential Structures
PCE	Unemployment(1)

This business cycle there are reasons that housing will not be a significant engine of recovery. It is possible - see Looking for the Sun - that new home sales and housing starts will bottom in 2009, but any recovery in housing will probably be sluggish.

That leaves Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) - and as households increase their savings rate to repair their balance sheets, it seems unlikely that PCE will increase significantly any time soon. So even if the economy bottoms in the 2nd half of 2009, any recovery will probably be very sluggish.

At least we know what to watch: Residential Investment (RI) and PCE. The increasingly severe slump in CRE / non-residential investment in structures will be interesting, but that is a lagging indicator for the economy.

(1) In recent recessions, unemployment significantly lagged the end of the recession. That is very likely this time too.

Posted by CalculatedRiskon 3/08/2009 03:56:00 PM168 Comments

Labels: Recession

__._,_.___

Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic

Messages | Links | Polls | Members | Calendar

Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

Recent Activity

Visit Your Group

Give Back

Yahoo! for Good

Get inspired

by a good cause.

Y! Toolbar

Get it Free!

easy 1-click access

to your groups.

Yahoo! Groups

Start a group

in 3 easy steps.

Connect with others.

.

__,_._,___

--
http://www.betaggarcian.blogspot.com/