China overtakes Germany as biggest exporter

Chinese exports in the last month of 2009 jumped 17.7 per cent from a year earlier, the state Xinhua News Agency and government television said. That made total exports for the year just over USD 1.2 trillion, ahead of the USD 1.17 trillion forecast last month for Germany by that country's foreign trade organisation, BGA.

Economists and Germany's national chamber of commerce said earlier it was likely to lose its longtime crown as top exporter.

China's new status is largely symbolic but reflects the ability of its resilient, low-cost manufacturers to keep selling abroad despite a collapse in global consumer demand due to the financial crisis.

China's politically sensitive trade surplus shrank by 34.2 per cent in 2009 to USD 196.07 billion, Xinhua said. That reflected China's stronger economic growth, driven by a USD 586 billion stimulus, and demand for imported raw materials and consumer goods at a time when demand in the United States and other foreign markets is weaker.

The December export rebound was an "important turning point," a customs agency economist, Huang Guohua, said on the state broadcaster CCTV