China Jan-Mar 2012 germanium and zirconium dioxide exports down 63.84%
China Jan-Mar 2012 germanium and zirconium dioxide exports down 63.84% - Metal-Pages
China - Sharply-slowing textile exports worry industry
New figures have showed that China's textile and garment exports slowed drastically in the first fourth months of this year as domestic companies worry about decreases in their market share overseas and inadequate support from consumption at home.
The export value of textile and garments in the January-April period stood at $71 billion, just 1.07 percent higher than a year ago, according to data released on Thursday by the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC).
The growth rate witnessed a sharp decline from the 27.05-percent rise registered in the first fourth months in 2011, judging by customs data.
Breaking the market down, exports of textile products grew only 0.15 percent to $30.73 billion, while garment exports increased 1.77 percent to $40.27 billion, the CNTAC data showed.
"The slowing exports were directly caused by higher domestic cotton prices," said CNTAC spokesman Sun Huaibin. The domestic price of 328-type cotton stood at 18,853 yuan ($2,974) per ton as of May 25, 5,460 yuan higher than its price in international markets.
The continuing price gap has weakened the competence of the domestic textile industry, Sun said, adding the nation's textile exports will face an even worse situation if the gap fails to narrow in future.
The spokesman said the disparity has also led to reduced market shares of Chinese textile and garment exports.
Along with rising labor costs at home in recent years, Chinese textile and garment products in major markets such as the United States and Japan fell to 35.58 percent and 72.03 percent, respectively, in the first quarter of 2012, down 4.55 and 2.92 percentage points year on year, Sun noted.
Meanwhile, according to the CNTAC data, China's textile exports to its third-largest trading partner, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, grew only 2.69 percent in the January-April period, representing a drastic fall of 59.66 percentage points year on year.
The data also showed textile and garment imports by the United States, the EU and Japan dropped 6.55 percent in the first quarter, which added to the worries of Zhong Daguang, general manager of a garment company based in southern China's Guangdong province, who said his company has been getting fewer orders since the start of the year.
Li Jincai, president of the China Textile Construction and Planning Institute, said obstacles in foreign trade and lackluster domestic consumption are both having an impact on the status of the country's textile and garment industry, which supplied 32.71 percent of total exports worldwide in 2010.
At home, the situation is no less worrying. The CNTAC data showed the sales revenues of 36,700 surveyed textile companies hit 1,677 billion yuan in the first four months, up 13.11 percent; however, the growth rate plunged 17.43 percentage points year on year.
Slowing growth in both exports and domestic sales revenues slashed the first-quarter profits of the surveyed companies to 53.7 billion yuan, down 1.77 percent year on year, the data suggested.
Source: China Daily .
China - Sharply-slowing Textile Exports Worry Industry
China Industrial Companies’ Profits Decline 2.2% In April
Chinese industrial companies’ profits fell in April, a government report showed, as the nation’s slowing economy curbed demand.
Earnings declined 2.2 percent from a year earlier to 407.6 billion yuan ($64.2 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website yesterday. That compared with a 4.5 percent gain in March.
The deceleration in corporate profit growth underscores concerns that the slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy is deepening. China’s State Council said on May 23 that downside risks to growth are increasing and the government will intensify “fine-tuning” policies as needed, signaling it may take more aggressive steps to support the nation’s expansion.
“China’s economy is slowing down, so profit growth will also be slower this year,” Lu Zhengwei, Shanghai-based chief economist at Industrial Bank Co., said before the release. “The pace may pick up a bit in coming months if the economy rebounds after policy easing filters through.”
Industrial profit growth for the full year is likely to be in a range of 10 percent to 20 percent, compared with 25.4 percent in 2011, Lu said.
Property Curbs
China’s economy may expand 7.9 percent this quarter from a year earlier, the least since 2009, a Bloomberg survey this month showed, as Europe’s debt crisis crimps exports and property curbs cool domestic demand. That’s down from an 8.1 percent pace in the first three months that was the fifth quarterly deceleration.
The government “must proactively take policies and measures to expand demand and to create a favorable policy environment for stable and relatively fast economic growth,” according to a government statement summarizing the State Council’s May 23 meeting.
A preliminary reading of HSBC’s China purchasing managers’ index released May 24 indicated manufacturing may contract for a seventh month, adding to signs that growth is weakening. The report followed data that showed industrial production in April rose the least since 2009 and new lending was the lowest this year.
Premier Wen Jiabao, while visiting a remote region in Hunan province, called for extra government support for the nation’s poorest areas, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The country should speed up important infrastructure projects and improve health-care services in impoverished regions, Wen was cited as saying.
Steelmaker Losses
Industrial profit for the first four months fell 1.6 percent from a year earlier to 1.45 trillion yuan, yesterday’s statistics bureau report showed. That compared with a 1.3 percent drop in the first quarter. Sales in the period rose 12.7 percent to 27 trillion yuan, according to the data.
Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. (600019), which supplies half of China’s automobile steel, reported a larger-than-estimated 60 percent drop in first-quarter profit on slowing demand, according to a statement filed to the Shanghai stock exchange on April 27. Steelmakers in China, the world’s biggest producer, had combined losses of more than 1 billion yuan in the first quarter, China Iron and Steel Association data show.
China’s industrial-profit data cover companies in 41 industries. Starting last year, the statistics bureau raised the minimum annual sales for businesses included in the survey to 20 million yuan from 5 million yuan.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zheng Lifei in Beijing at
lzheng32@bloomberg.net
China Industrial Companies
