China May trade falls on poor demand, holidays

11 June 2009 11:03  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--China’s trade in May continued to tumble due to weak global demand, with the long holidays during the month aggravating the year-on-year decline, government data released on Thursday showed.

Imports plunged 25.2% year on year to $75.37bn (€54.27bn) while exports fell 26.4% to $88.76bn, China Customs said.

The three-day Labour holiday and another three-day Dragon Boat Festival shortened the working days last month and had a negative impact on trade,  it said.

Taking out the holiday effects, the government agency estimated that imports would have just declined 17.7% compared to a year earlier and exports' decline would have been slightly lower at 22.8%.

In the first five months of the year, shipments of goods were down 21.8% to $426.1bn while imports declined by 28% to $337.3bn, the statistics showed.

China has hiked export rebates on some shipments from 1 June in a bid to boost exports.

($1 = €0.72)

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By: Judith Wang
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