China's Trade Surplus Swells, Posing Policy Test
BEIJING -- China's trade surplus for October ballooned to a monthly record of $23.83 billion, far surpassing the previous record and posing a challenge for policy makers trying to manage both the domestic economy and its external imbalances.
Since early this year, China has raised interest rates and taken other steps to reduce bank lending in hopes of taking some of the froth out of investment in factories and public-works projects. Those measures appear to be having the desired result, as the pace of economic expansion eased in the third quarter. Yesterday's trade data from China's customs agency reinforced that trend, as imports in October rose 14.7% from a year earlier -- a sharp slowing from September's increase of 22%.
Export growth, however, has remained robust. China's shipments of merchandise overseas jumped 29.6% in October from a year earlier, only slightly slower than September's 30.6% increase. That reflects not only strong demand in major markets like the U.S. and Europe, but also the expansion of China's export base, as companies continue to build factories and diversify their product lines.
The combination of slower import growth with still-fast export growth is producing an ever-wider trade surplus: October's gap was significantly larger than the previous monthly record of $18.8 billion, set in August.
The bulk of China's surplus is with the U.S. and Europe, where the swelling trade imbalance has become a potent symbol of what critics describe as China's unfair trading practices. Political pressure on China could well increase after the Democratic victories in U.S. congressional elections.
The flood of cash from the surplus also could help undo the government's success in slowing the economy's pace of expansion. Because of China's controlled exchange rate, the central bank must issue yuan to buy all the foreign currency generated by the trade surplus -- a process that shoves even more money into the country's banking system. That in turn puts pressure on banks to put that cash to use, thereby undercutting official exhortations for them to be more conservative with lending.
"It just shows that the policy response they've used to slow the economy over the past six months only reinforces the liquidity they had to begin with," said Paul Cavey, a China economist with Macquarie, an investment bank. "In the first half of next year they're likely to be facing the same liquidity problems they did in the first half of this year, only more so."
The trade surplus this year has reached $133.62 billion, or 66% bigger than the $80.37 billion surplus accumulated in the first 10 months of 2005. More money -- about $40 billion so far this year -- is coming into the country in the form of long-term foreign investment. Those inflows helped push China's foreign-exchange reserves, already the world's largest, past the $1 trillion mark this week.
All that demand for Chinese currency puts significant upward pressure on its value -- a pressure the government has been resisting for fear that a rapid strengthening would damage the exporting companies that employ millions. However, authorities do appear to have been letting the yuan appreciate at a somewhat faster pace in recent weeks, and the U.S. dollar weakened to less than 7.87 yuan in intraday trading for the first time yesterday.
中国贸易顺差引发政策难题
中国10月份贸易顺差为238.3亿美元，再创历史新高，远远超出前一历史高位，同时也对努力解决国家经济发展问题和外部失衡状况的政策制定者们提出了挑战。
自年初以来，中国已通过提高利率及其他措施来降低银行信贷规模，从而消除部分因新工厂及公共工程投资热而引发的泡沫。这些措施似乎已经起到了预期的效果：第三季度经济扩张速度有所放缓，海关总署周三的贸易数据也同样反映了这一趋势，其中，10月份的贸易进口额较上年增幅大幅放缓至14.7%，远低于9月份22%的增幅。
但出口方面几乎未受到影响。中国10月份出口商品总额较上年同期增长29.6%，9月份出口额增幅为30.6%；这不仅说明美国、欧洲等主要市场对中国产品需求强劲，同时也说明随着企业继续扩大规模、丰富各自的产品线，中国的对外出口基础正在不断扩大。
进口额增长放缓而出口增长依然强劲，导致贸易顺差进一步扩大：10月份的贸易顺差显着高于8月份创下的188亿美元的前历史最高纪录。
贸易顺差带来的巨额资金流入可能会削弱中国政府目前在减缓经济增长方面所取得的成就。由于中国政府对人民币汇率实行管制，中国央行必须通过发行更多人民币来购买由贸易顺差带来的所有外汇，这样便会有更多的资金流入银行系统，继而促使银行不得不想办法将这些资金利用起来，如此一来，政府所倡导的控制信贷的措施便难以执行。
麦格理银行(Macquarie)驻中国的经济学家Paul Cavey表示，上述情况恰好表明，中国过去6个月所采取的减缓经济增长速度的政策措施加剧了面临的流动性压力，预计明年上半年中国将可能面临与今年上半年相同的流动性问题，而且形势可能会更加严峻。
今年前10个月，中国的贸易顺差已累计达到1,336亿美元，较去年同期803.7亿美元的贸易顺差额高出50%以上。此外，今年到目前为止还有约400亿美元的资金以外商长期投资的方式进入中国，这些流入资金对中国外汇储备于本周突破1万亿美元大关发挥了一定作用。中国的外汇储备规模之前已名列全球第一。
所有这些对人民币的需求给人民币汇率带来的极大的上行压力，而中国政府正在竭力抑制人民币的过快升值，担心这会给拥有数百万从业人员的出口行业带来冲击。但是，近几周中国政府的确在某种程度上加快了人民币的升值步伐，美元兑人民币周三盘中首次跌破人民币7.87元。
Andrew Batson
