Growth in China's trade surplus will ease in the second half of
this year as the central government's measures to curb exports
begin to have an impact, a senior trade official said
yesterday.
The surplus soared to US$112.5 billion in the first half of this
year, up 84 percent from a year earlier. The June surplus hit a
record US$26.9 billion.
The remarkable increase resulted partly from enterprises rushing
to export as much as they could ahead of July 1, when the
value-added tax rebate was either scrapped or reduced as part of
efforts to trim the surplus, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Wang
Xinpei said.
"This factor (the export rush) will fade out in the second half
of this year," Wang said.
In addition, other measures to curb exports will help slow the
growth in surplus, he added.
The government has adopted various methods to narrow the
surplus, such as levying export taxes and encouraging imports of
high-tech products.
However, many economists predict it will take time before a
significant change can be seen.
"We have to wait at least three months to see any effect, and
possibly longer, since many firms will continue to manufacture and
export given their capacity is already in place," said Stephen
Green, an economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai. He
expects the full-year surplus to set a record this year.
"We do not expect to see any major change in the overall picture
in the near future as the dampening effect of the tax rebate
adjustment is likely to be offset by stronger global industrial
production momentum," said Liang Hong, an economist with Goldman
Sachs' Asia Economics Research Group.
In another development, technical barriers erected by trade
partners cost China as much as US$75.8 billion last year and over
15 percent of exporters were affected, according to research by the
Ministry of Commerce.
The barriers refer to regulations, standards or procedures for
assessing imports. Compared to traditional trade barriers such as
tariff and import quotas, they have been adopted more frequently in
recent years.
(China Daily July 12, 2007)
