China's imports, exports continue falling in September

• Source: Global Times
• [10:13 October 14 2009]
• Comments

China's foreign trade continued to fall in September from a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs announced Wednesday.

The total value of imports and exports for September dropped 10.1 percent to $218.94 billion.

In August, the drop was 20.6 percent compared with the same month last year.

The value of imports in September stood at $103.006 billion, down 3.5 percent year-on-year. The value of exports for the same month fell 15.2 percent year-on-year to $115.938 billion.

Economists interviewed by Caijing say the performance of China's trade for September was better than expected. According to the average prediction from 13 economists that Caijing spoke to, the total value of exports for September would drop 20.5 percent, and among them, their most positive forecast was a 16 percent drop. They predict the total value of imports to drop 13.4 percent on average, and their best case scenario would be a drop of 7.0 percent.

The trade surplus for September was $12.9 billion, down 56 percent year-on-year.