Manufacturing Continues Its Tentative Recovery

Manufacturing output continues to increase. Not by much, to be sure, but an increase none the less. For the third consecutive month, the purchasing managers’ index was above 50, the dividing line between expansion and contraction. May’s number was 53.1, down slightly from April’s 53.3, but May’s number is often lower than April’s and there [...]

Ray Of Hope In China’s March Trade Figures

March’s trade figures provide the latest crocus report. While exports were down 17.1% from a year earlier, that was a less than expected decline and markedly better than the previous month’s 25.7% year-on-year decline. All of which suggests we may be getting near the nadir of the contraction in world trade. Imports are still falling [...]

Nike Cuts China Suppliers

Here’s a straw in the wind, and a bad one at that. Nike is dropping three of its China suppliers because of the global slowdown in demand for its sports shoes and apparel, and saying that more may follow as part of a global restructuring now in review. Nike uses 180 suppliers in China, so four [...]

Worsening Trade Figures Expected This Week

Container volume at the ports was down 17% in February year-on-year, Xinhua reports. That heralds bad news for the monthly trade figures expected later this week. We’re expecting not just a fourth consecutive month of declining exports, but a bigger percentage fall than January’s 17.5%. Stimulus measures may be showing signs of helping the domestic [...]

Happy New Year, We Can Only Hope

For those of you for whom it is, Happy New Year.
This Bystander took a short break but the global economic slowdown kept going regardless.  We return to find the latest monthly Purchasing Managers Index showing that industrial activity shrank in December for the third month running. At 41.2 the PMI is still well below the [...]

Exports Fell In November – Official

Now they have been released, the official November trade figures show the expected decline in exports as the global slowdown bites deeper into the economy.
At $115 billion, November’s exports were down 2.2% on the same month a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs says. Seasonally adjusted it is the first fall in export values [...]

Smart Union Collapse Signals Deepening Economic Problems In Southern China

Workers seeking unpaid wages from Smart Union Group, a leading toy maker that went into liquidation on Friday, were still milling around outside the company’s Dongguan factory on Sunday, AFP reports.
The toy company stopped production at all its factories last week, leaving more than 6,000 workers looking to recoup unpaid back wages. Smart Union, which [...]

Facing Protectionism, Slowdown, Beijing Eases Up On Exporters

China is easing off on some of its low end manufacturers because of the global economic slowdown and worries about protectionism.
Reuters reports government officials as saying they will stop further cuts in value added tax refunds to help hard-pressed exporters. The VAT refunds have been scaled back to rein in labor intensive low-end manufactured exports, [...]

Slowing Surplus

One swallow doesn’t make a summer. One month’s economic statistics doesn’t make a trend.
The large drop in the trade surplus for February to $8.6 billion from $19.5 billion in January and $23.8 billion a year earlier is probably an aberration caused by the timing of New Year and the disruption to production and shipping from [...]

More Cutting Out The Waste

A bit, if only a bit, more flesh on the skeleton of regulations being put in place to curb polluters:  a state database of companies that violate environmental rules is being set up, according to Zhang Lijun, vice director of the State Environmental Protection Agency; greater cooperation with the commerce ministry to supervise exporters is [...]