Trade volume unlikely to reach 10% target

China's trade volume in the first 11 months has grown 5.8 percent compared to the same period last year, meeting a prevailing market expectation that China's trade growth is slowing. The pace of growth further narrowed from its October reading of 6.3 percent, adding to concerns that the 10 percent annual growth target will be hard to realize by the year end.

The trade volume with Europe ranked first, reaching nearly 500 billion US dollars in the first 11 months, a drop of 4 percent compared to a year earlier. The trade amount with America follows behind, standing at around 440 billion USD, but the speed of growth is an inspiring increase of 9.3 percent. As for Japan, the trade volume stands at around 300 billion, unsurprisingly dropping by nearly 3 percent. However, we have seen a strong rise in trade with Russia and ASEAN, with growth rates at 12 percent and 9 percent respectively.

Breaking down the numbers geographically, the trade volume was mainly dragged down by major export provinces Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Fujian. Guangdong's trade volume went up 6.4 percent until November, while Jiangsu has only gone up about 1 percent. Fujian however, has done relatively well, posting an 8 percent increase year-on-year. The trade amount of these five provinces plus Beijing and Shanghai accounts for nearly 80 percent of China's overall trade volume.

Some analysts say the outlook for next year is also dim, due to the fact that the global economy is still in a downturn and the chance of walking out of it is unpromising. Another major reason economists are pessimistic about the trade growth is the existence of trade protectionism from the US and Europe. But they also note that as China is transitioning from being heavily reliant on exports to more focused on domestic consumption, the slowing trade figure has come with an improving trade quality. For example, high quality electro-mechanical products have an export value totalling some 1 trillion US dollars so far this year, and it grew nearly 1 percent faster than the overall trade. It means China's effort to optimize its trade structure has shown some progress.