Chinese exports and imports fall for third month in a row
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - China's exports fell in May for the third consecutive month, distancing hopes of a quick recovery for the world’s second largest economy. However the real concern is the area of imports, which lost 18.1% over last year for a total of more than 803 billion yuan.
Given the data, the trade surplus in exports is now at a record level of 59.49 billion dollars against a forecast 44.95 billion dollars. Exports last month registered a drop of 2.8% on an annual basis, at 1.17 trillion yuan (169.7 billion euro), an improvement on the figure for April (- 6.4%). The figure is higher than the expectations of analysts, who expected a decline of about 5 percentage points.
The trade surplus in imports thus arrives at 366.8 billion yuan (53.2 billion euro) down on April, according to China’s customs authority. The slowdown of the Chinese economy is also confirmed by the latest figure for the manufacturing from May, in contraction for the third consecutive month. In the first quarter, China's economy grew by 7%, its lowest since 2009.
The continuing economic downturn worries the Communist Party and the government, with the decline of the gross domestic product unemployment will increase and in fact the average purchasing power will decrease appreciably. Combined, these two factors could trigger massive social protests - already growing exponentially despite the iron hand of Xi Jinping – which could go so far as to question the one-party political system of the communist regime.
To try to curb what now seems an unstoppable trend, the government has assigned to the State Council the of launching a ten-year plan of recovery. This plan to "bet everything" on new technology, described as "the key to the economic revival of China".
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