By: Mike Campbell
Last year saw the world deep in the grips of the global recession with economic output and demand slashed to a fraction of their typical levels. Against this backdrop, it has been announced that China’s export figures for February are up by 46% on where they were a year ago. The numbers have surpassed analysts’ expectations which predicted that the rise would fall within the 35 to 40% range. China also imported substantially more goods with a comparable rise in the import figures for last month (44.7%), but that still left them with a healthy year-on-year trade surplus for February of $7.6bn – the lowest monthly surplus for a year. The data show that Chinese economic activity is substantially higher than a year ago. The figures have restarted calls on the Chinese to allow the Yuan to find its own level on international money markets. The Americans, in particular, have cried foul that the Yuan is significantly undervalued; giving Chinese exports an unfair competitive edge. It is, however, unlikely that the Chinese will agree to this move in the near future.
Chinese Inflation At 16 Month High
Since every silver lining must have a cloud, it will come as little surprise that the strong growth within the Chinese economy has pushed inflation to a 16 month high. Figures just released show that inflation has risen to 2.7% in February (up from 1.5% in January). This has led to renewed calls for the government to tighten the economy to prevent “overheating”. The most likely tool to achieve this would be an increase in the cost of borrowing through a hike in the interest rate which has been on hold since December 2007.