China – Japan Trade Flat in 2014

China’s total value of exports and imports for 2014 with Japan remained almost flat from the previous year, while that with the whole world increased 3.4 percent, official data showed Tuesday.

China’s overall combined exports and imports were well below the government’s full-year target of 7.5 percent growth from 2013, amid a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.

Last year, China’s exports rose 6.1 percent to $2.34 trillion, compared with an expansion of 7.8 percent in 2013, according to the General Administration of Customs, which released the data.

China’s imports edged up 0.4 percent to $1.96 trillion, down sharply from an increase of 7.2 percent in the previous year, the administration said.

But with Japan, exports declined 0.5 percent and imports only increased 0.4 percent, it said, on the back of rising labor costs in China and the depreciation of the Japanese yen.

In 2013, China’s trade with Japan fell about 5.1 percent, which marked the second consecutive year of contraction, as bilateral relations plummeted to their lowest point in many decades over territorial and wartime historical issues.

China’s trade with Japan in 2014 was flat in percentage terms, but it saw a fractional increase in its actual dollar-denominated value, coming in at $312.44 billion.

There are some signs that business sentiment between Asia’s two biggest economies has been improving since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first talks last November.

Meanwhile, with the European Union, China’s largest trade partner, exports rose 9.9 percent on the year and imports jumped 10.7 percent.

With the United States, China’s exports grew 7.5 percent and imports rose 4.2 percent.

via Mainichi

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