Exports: sluggishness interspersed with positive change, standing at crossroad

Boosted by the stimulus package, domestic demand, including investment and consumption, is continuously expanding, but it is difficult to predict when foreign demand, which has already plummeted, will recover. Weak foreign demand has become the largest factor hindering the Chinese economy's bottoming out.

Chinese exports dropped by 22.6 percent year-on-year in April, with the rate of decrease continuing to accelerate. According to an analysis based on workday averages done by the General Administration of Customs, exports increased by 6.9 percent in April compared with the export volume of the previous month, keeping the month-on-month upward trend since March..

The shrinkage of foreign demand is curbing the pace of China's economic recovery. Since export-oriented enterprises provide tens of millions of job opportunities in China, the continued operational difficulties of these enterprises will not only affect the production and investment of their upstream and downstream enterprises, but also cause decreases of both job opportunities and residents' incomes, and even likely hinder the future growth of consumption.

On the whole, Chinese economic operations have presently shown positive changes, but these changes are preliminary and need to be reinforced. The global economic situation is still very grim, and the Chinese economy is experiencing a hard time.

(People's Daily Online May 19, 2009)