Ministry: Fluctuation in exports data does not necessarily means fraud

Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang recently negated the suspicion about fraud in China's exports data in December 2012.

Official data show that China's total import and export amount in December 2012 increased by 10.2 percent over the same period the year before, and the export amount increased by 14.1 percent, much higher than the growth rate in November. Some media quoted the agency's data and said China's export data in December was suspected to have been artificially overstated.

In this regard, Shen Danyang responded that it is unreasonable to suspect data fraud just because of fluctuations.

"Fluctuations in the monthly data are normal," Shen said. “Significant fluctuations of more than 10 percent between adjacent months had already appeared twice before December last year.”

Those fluctuations were caused by more severe foreign trade environment last year that were affected by multiple factors including external demand, domestic factors, enterprises psychological factors, and holidays, said Shen.

The foreign trade objectives of year 2012 were not completed. In 2013, the objective is to keep the rate of foreign trade growth largely in sync with that of GDP growth.

In 2012, China's total import and export amount was 3.87 trillion U.S. dollars, up by 6.2 percent over the same period the year before. This rate fell short of the original objective of 10 percent in early 2021 by 3.8 percentage points.

Regarding this, Shen said that the sluggish and oscillating world economic situation, the further deterioration of the European debt crisis, as well as some other complex factors have exacerbated the downturn in China's external demand to an extent a little more than expected.

In fact, according to the prognosis of WTO, the global trade in 2012 would grow by only about 2.5 percent or less. In such context, China's foreign trade achieved a growth of 6.2 percent. Such growth is "hard won," said Shen.

Read the Chinese version: 商务部：不能有波动就怀疑数据造假
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition; Author: Zhang Yixuan

We recommend:
Online turnover surpasses 1 trillion yuan in 2012	Jack Ma to step down as Alibaba CEO	FDI sees 1st decrease in 9 years amid slowdown
China helps drive Rolls to record year	Top Ten Economic Events in 2012	CIC seeks balanced portfolio