China Exports Beat Expectations, Credit Use Rises 28%

“China’s exports rose more than forecast last month and a broad measure of credit surged 28 percent, helping the nation’s new leaders sustain a pickup in economic growth after a seven-quarter slowdown.

Overseas shipments increased 14.1 percent from a year earlier, the most since May, customs administration data showed today, compared with the 5 percent median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 40 economists. Aggregatefinancing of 1.63 trillion yuan ($262 billion), which includes bank and non- bank lending, was up from 1.27 trillion yuan a year earlier, according to the central bank.

Asian stocks extended gains, commodities rose and the Australian dollar strengthened after the reports spurred confidence that the recovery in the world’s second-largest economy is gaining traction and global demand is stabilizing. A subdued U.S. recovery and European austerity measures may restrain China’s trade this year, while growth in non-bank financing threatens to increase debt risks.

“This improves the sequential momentum after weakness earlier in 2012,” said Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the World Bank in Beijing. Strength in imports last quarter is also “indicative of a further recovery” in gross domestic product from the previous period, Kuijs said…”

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