China’s Trade Surplus Surges to $31.5 Billion Exceeds Estimates

[Sonny]

By Bloomberg News - Aug 10, 2011 3:43 AM ET

China’s trade surplus surged to $31.5 billion, the highest level in more than two years, as exports rose to a record. The surplus exceeded a median forecast of $27.4 billion.

China’s trade surplus, a cause of friction with trading partners including the U.S., was $22.3 billion in June and $28.7 billion in July 2010.

Exports from other Asian nations are also proving resilient amid faltering growth in Europe and the U.S.

South Korea’s outbound shipments grew 27.3 percent last month, the government said Aug. 1, rebounding from a 20-month low and beating forecasts for a 17.1 percent gain. Taiwan’s overseas shipments rose 17.6 percent in July to a record value, double the median estimate.

Still, Singapore today cut its forecast for export growth this year, saying that risks have increased amid “sluggish” growth in developed economies. Market sentiment remains fragile in the European Union amid concern that a debt crisis will spread from peripheral economies, the trade ministry said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...estimates.html

[Ross]

The sum of all International trade ( exports - imports ) should be Zero .

However whenever economists try to do the sum on global
trade it is always wildly wrong . The figures do not add-up .

Now it could be that economists are bad at arithmetic or it
could be that countries reporting trade figures are .........

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by Ross

The sum of all International trade ( exports - imports ) should be Zero .

Why would such an arbitrary balance exist in the chaotic world of global trade?
----------

However whenever economists try to do the sum on global trade it is always wildly wrong . The figures do not add-up . Now it could be that economists are bad at arithmetic or it could be that countries reporting trade figures are .........

It is a given that figures reported by governments are less data and more propaganda.

[Ross]

Why would such an arbitrary balance exist in the chaotic
world of global trade?

What clowns those economists are , expecting ships that leave
one port to arrive at another .

Obviously Somali pirates .

Chinese figures may well have heavily modified
by rising raw material costs.

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by Ross

What clowns those economists are , expecting ships that leave one port to arrive at another .

Obviously Somali pirates .

Not sure what you are trying to say here.
----------

Chinese figures may well have heavily modified by rising raw material costs.

If the Chinese were paying us more for raw materials like lumber, cement and scrap metal, our trade balance would be improving instead of getting worse. They buy a lot of raw materials from us. They buy a lot of food from us, too, and that has not exactly been getting cheaper.

With the economy as bad as it is, we should be buying less from China, not more. Even though these figures represent the time period before the recent economic unpleasantness, in the last year sales have not exactly been booming in America. So I find the trade deficit growing so much to be something of a mystery.

[Pablo Escobar]

I'm not ross, but I think he is saying that the Chinese are lying about their figures.... Export and or import....

If you sum up all the value exports of the world, and sum up all the value of the imports, by definition, it should net to zero.... or pretty darn close.

I've never seen the work, but it doesn't surprise me that it doesn't.

If I had to guess, I would think that the export number would be wildly higher than the import number.

[Pablo Escobar]

However, Ross, in the defense of the dataticians..... The work today to reconcile import and export figures is much harder to perform than it was pre 1980. Today, with movies, and services and transfer payments of foreign workers, it is much harder to get close to real data accurate flows.

[Ought Six]

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2...y-a-long-shot/

[Kassy]

Originally Posted by Pablo Escobar

If you sum up all the value exports of the world, and sum up all the value of the imports, by definition, it should net to zero.... or pretty darn close.

But you never get actual values, the values you usually get will be estimates. It probably adds up if you know the real values but we're not priviliged enough.

[Sonny]

Since the financial crisis began China's economy has expanded by almost 40% and the US and Europe not at all