Data Watch on China’s Foreign Trade and Investment in the First Three Qs of 2012

China’s foreign trade in the first nine months of 2012

According to statistics of the Customs, China’s exports and imports in the first nine months of 2012 reached$2.84247 trillion, up by 6.2% over the same period of last year. Specifically, exports stood at $1.49539 trillion, up by 7.4% year on year; imports $1.34708 trillion, up by 4.8%. The nine months saw a trade surplus of $148.31 billion, increasing by 38.5%. Four obvious features are as follows:

Steady increase in trade with the United States; decline in trade with the EU and Japan.

From January to September of the year, China’s bilateral trade with the United States reported 9.1% increase over the same period of last year, 8.1% increase with ASEAN, 14.2% increase with Russia, 37.1% increase with South Africa, and 5.0% increase with Brazil. While the trade with the EU and Japan decreased 2.7% and 1.8% respectively.

Continuing sharp increase in exports of Central and Western China; slow increase in Eastern China.

During the first three quarters of 2012, the exports in Central China increased 21.5% and 43.4% in Western China. The exports in Chongqing Province were 1.5 times more than the same period of last year. The exports in Anhui, Henan and Sichuan Provinces rose by 69.9%, 62.8% and 42.8% respectively. The increasing rate in Eastern China was 4.3%, and that of Guangdong Province was 6.4%. The increasing rates of Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong were 4.9%, 4.0%, 3.0% and-0.2% respectively, which were all lower than the national increasing rate in the same period.

Steady increase of the expansion rate of exports and imports under the general trade; sluggish growth in exports and imports of processing trade.

From January to September of this year, China’s general trade value was$1.49897 trillion, up by 5.9% year on year, in which exports value increased by 8.3% to $729.78 billion, while im- ports value increased by 3.6% to $769.19 billion. The total value of processing trade was $982.94 billion, up by 2.2%, in which the exports value rose by 3.0% to $630.94 billion, while the imports value increased 0.9% to $352.0 billion.

Steady increase in exports of mechanical and electrical products; slight increase in exports of labor-intensive products.

In the first nine months of the year, China exported $854.83 billion worth of mechanical and electrical products, 8.3% higher than that of last year, 0.9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the nation’s total exports in the same period. The total exports value of labor-intensive products including textile, apparel, shoes, luggage, plastics, furniture and toys increased by 6.9%, 1 percentage point higher than August. In September, the exports of mechanical and electrical products increased 8.6%, 5.2 percentage points higher than August. The exports of the mentioned seven varieties of labor-intensive products increased 14.9%, 12.6 percentage points higher than that of August.

Utilization of foreign investment

In the first nine months of 2012, China approved the establishment of 18,025 new foreign-invested enterprises in non-financial fields, a decline of 11.7% year on year. China utilized$83.42 billion worth of foreign capital, a decline of 3.8% from the same period of last year. In September alone, the num- ber of newly-set-up foreign-invested enterprises was 2,248, down by 6.4%, and the sum of foreign capital utilization was $8.43 billion, down by 6.8% (excluding the data of banks, securities and the insurance industry). The features are as follows:

Slight increase of foreign capital utilization in service industries excluding the real estate.

From January to September, the service industry made an actual use of$39.48 billion in foreign investment, a decline of 1.8% over the same period of last year and accounting for 47% of the national total. Specifically, foreign investment in real estate was down by 5.62%, while the rest of service industries saw an increase of 1.6%. The following industries witnessed relatively faster increase rates in the utilization of foreign investment, that is, retail and wholesale (6.7%), construction industry (27.8%), information transmission, computer services and software industry(32.8%). The sectors of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries made an actual use of $1.25 billion in foreign investment, a decrease of 10.3% year on year and accounting for 1.5% of the country’s total utilization of foreign capital. The manufacturing industry made an actual use of $36.95 billion in foreign investment, a decrease of 7.5% year on year and accounting for 44.3% of the country’s total utilization of for- eign capital. In specific, the communications equipment manufacturing and sheet glass manufacturing had much higher increasing rates, which were 67.2% and 178.35% respectively.

Narrowing decrease in the investment from several developed countries.

During the past nine months, the paid-in capital from 27 countries in EU was $4.83 billion, dropped by 6.3%, in which that of German, Holland and Switzerland increased by 29.1%, 38.9% and 142.3% respectively. The amount of foreign investment from the US decreased 0.63% (that of the first eight months was 2.9%) and reached to $2.37 billion during the past nine months. The total amount of the investment from Japan was $5.62 billion, up by 17.0%. The amount of paid-in capital in China from ten Asia nations and regions (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and South Korea) was down by 4.9%, in which the investment from Singapore increased by 21.7% to $5.24 billion, while Hong Kong dropped by 8.7% to $52.08 billion.

Continuing significant increase in paid-in foreign capital to Central China.

From January to September, the central regions made an actual use of$6.99 billion, an increase of 16.5%, and accounting for 8.4% of the national total. The western regions made an actual use of $6.22 billion in foreign investment, a decline of 1.8% year on year and accounting for 7.4% of the national total. The eastern regions made an actual use of $70.22 billion in foreign investment, a decline of 5.6% year on year and accounting for 84.2% of the national total.

Overseas investment and economic cooperation

China’s outbound FDI.

In the past three quarters, China’s domestic investors invested directly in 2,941 overseas corporations in 126 nations and regions, with a total of nonfinancial outbound FDI of $52.52 billion, an increase of 28.9% year on year.

The investment in Hong Kong, Russia, ASEAN, Japan and the United States reached to a doubledigit growth, which were 50.8%, 35%, 27.6%, 22.2% and 14.3% respectively. The investment in EU was down by 30.3%, and the investment in Australia dropped 40%.

Overseas-contracted projects.

In the past nine months of this year, China’s overseas-contracted projects reported a turnover of $76.02 billion, an increase of 14% year on year.$93.41 billion worth of new contracts were signed from January to September, up by 0.3% year on year. In September alone, $7.56 billion turnover was achieved, down by 21.5%.

By the end of September, China had signed a total of $935.1 billion worth of agreements on contracting overseas projects, and realized $615.0 billion in turnover.

Foreign labor service cooperation.

In the first nine months of 2012, the number of all kinds of labor sent abroad was 313,000, an increase of 5,000 from the same period of last year. 161,000 of them were working on overseas contracted projects, and 152,000 of them were for labor cooperation. At the end of September, there were a total of 866,000 Chinese working abroad, 68,000 more than the same period of last year.