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Shanghai, the largest foreign trade port of China, reported the lowest export growth rate in October, with exports growing only 0.4 per cent and imports actually falling 5.7 per cent.
Shanghai's exports totalled US$56.8 billion from January to October, up 12.7 per cent from the same time last year.
Shanghai's exports demonstrate how the whole country has been hit by the worsening world economy.
China's exports in the first 10 months of this year reached US$217.6 billion, up 7.9 per cent.
"Compared with the growth rate of 27.8 per cent in China's exports last year, the growth rate of the country's exports for the whole year of 2001 will be much lower, probably around 4 per cent," said an expert with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation.
The growth rate dropped monthly from February, when it was 27.8 per cent, to June, which recorded a negative 0.6 per cent. After July, the growth rate picked up a bit but still was at a low level because of a high benchmark last year.
China's exports to the United States remained the largest among all its trading partners. It grew 4.2 per cent in the first 10 months, to US$45.2 billion. But the growth rate was 23 percentage points lower than the same period last year.
(China Daily December 4, 2001)
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