May 17, 2013
Translated by Zhu Na

China's Ministry of Commerce has admitted that some abnormal factors have led to higher-than-expected growth in exports to some regions.

In response to a question about doubts surrounding recent export data, Shen Danyang (沈丹阳), a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, told reporters that the elevated growth in exports from some regions was caused by a combination of reasonable and abnormal factors. The spokeperson also said that investigation and analysis were being carried out in order to discover what exactly has been causing the high levels of growth.

This is the first time that Ministry of Commerce has clearly stated that the country's export data is "unusual".

Last month, the ministry mentioned that it had noticed the situation and, together with the General Administration of Customs, had initiated an investigation.
 
Custom's data revealed that in the first four months of the year, China's export grew by 17.4 percent compared to the same period last year, much higher than many analysts had expected. Exports from Mainland China to Hong Kong grew by almost 70 percent over the same period.

Many institutions, including the State Information Centre, a government-backed think tank, believe that falsified data has helped contribute to the export growth figures.

Differences in mainland China and Hong Kong's export and import statistics suggest that some local governments have transported goods from the local special customs supervision zones to Hong Kong and then immediately sent the goods back again in an effort to inflate overall trade figures.

If Hong Kong is excluded from the trade data, export growth to other markets over the first four months of the year comes to 8.5 percent. This basically matches to our expectation of this year's foreign trade growth of 8 percent, Shen Danyang told reporters.
 
Links and Sources
Beijing News: 商务部：外贸数据偏高有异常因素
Economic Observer Online: Authorities Investigating Suspect Trade Figures