“Revived”, eh?
Do they ever go away?
Here is yesterday’s data:
- China trade balance for September: $ 31.00bn (vs. expected $41.10bn) and more
- Comments from customs spokesman Zheng Yuesheng are here
- and China September trade data – imports from New Zealand decline for first time since February 2013
Anyways …. where were we …
Oh, yeah:
- Hong Kong unexpectedly overtook the U.S. in September as the top destination for Chinese shipments. Not everyone is convinced those flows were genuine.
- Analysts at banks including Everbright Securities Co., Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. and Bank of Communications Co. said over-invoicing and over-reporting may explain the 34 percent surge in exports to Hong Kong from a year earlier.
- “Signs of distortion might have re-emerged in the trade data,” Xu Gao, chief economist at Everbright Securities, said in a note yesterday
- Xu, who formerly worked at the World Bank, pointed out the surge in exports included shipments of precious metals, which have been at the center of dodgy invoicing in the past. Government policies to support exports “seem to have stimulated fake exports instead,” he said.
- The customs administration didn’t respond to faxed questions on speculation the September data was distorted. Hong Kong is scheduled to report September trade figures on Oct. 27, when the size of any discrepancy may become clearer.
More at Bloomberg
Party poopers.
