China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

[touchring]

A weak currency can do miracles.

China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Meantime, China's total foreign trade, both exports and imports, fell 13.9 percent in 2009
VOA News 10 January 2010


Chinese officials say the country's exports surged in December to edge out Germany as the world's biggest exporter.

The official Xinhua news agency reported Sunday that figures from the General Administration for Customs showed that exports jumped 17.7 percent in December from a year earlier.

Huang Guohua, a statistics official with the customs administration, said the December exports rebound was an important turning point for China's export sector.

Huang added that the jump was an indication that exporters have emerged from their downslide.

However, although China overtook Germany in exports, China's total foreign trade -- both exports and imports -- fell 13.9 percent in 2009.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news...-81090602.html

[ciaoant1]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Yes, but happens if protectionism is enforced?
It will be enforced mainly against China, Germany will do relatively OK (after all, they are the "boss" of eurozone, so the eurozone countries will never implement protectionism against Germany).

China will be in a very difficult position then

[touchring]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Yes, but happens if protectionism is enforced?
It will be enforced mainly against China, Germany will do relatively OK (after all, they are the "boss" of eurozone, so the eurozone countries will never implement protectionism against Germany).

China will be in a very difficult position then

Don't you know, they are in cahoots. For every dollar of goods China exports, multinationals, many of them S&P500 companies, earns two or three dollars from markups. And who controls the Whitehouse?

[ciaoant1]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Yes, good point, but i never said that the White House will put a stop to this. I believe that it may take some time, but eventually the people will demand that outsourcing to China is stopped. It needs to be done

[Chris]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Yes, good point, but i never said that the White House will put a stop to this. I believe that it may take some time, but eventually the people will demand that outsourcing to China is stopped. It needs to be done

Does it? Surely the answer is to retool the US economy to produce goods and services that are, or will be, in demand. e.g. Nanotech, biotech, energy products.

What a crazy idea...I need to go lie down.

[touchring]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Yes, good point, but i never said that the White House will put a stop to this. I believe that it may take some time, but eventually the people will demand that outsourcing to China is stopped. It needs to be done

That won't solve one third of the problem. The US still has to compete with Japan and Germany. It is in fact far easier to impose protectionist measures on Chinese products than to compete with Japan and Germany.

The real solution is to wind down the merchant banks, impose punitive taxes on capital gains. Resources freed from unproductive gambling can be diverted into manufacturing.

[ciaoant1]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Does it? Surely the answer is to retool the US economy to produce goods and services that are, or will be, in demand. e.g. Nanotech, biotech, energy products.

Why would an employer invest in USA, when he can invest his money in China, produce the same things at a much lower labour cost?

[ciaoant1]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

That won't solve one third of the problem. The US still has to compete with Japan and Germany. It is in fact far easier to impose protectionist measures on Chinese products than to compete with Japan and Germany.

Labour cost is pretty much the same in USA, Germany. But not in China, this is the big difference

[flintlock]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Labour cost is pretty much the same in USA, Germany. But not in China, this is the big difference

Add to that regulatory costs, the fact China doesn't always honor patent agreements,etc.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Labour cost is pretty much the same in USA, Germany. But not in China, this is the big difference

This reminds me of The Innovator's Dilemma, due to disruptive technology, writ large.

There are two "solutions":

1. regulatory suppression of the disruptions, or
2. adapt to the new.

Adapting to dramatically lower industrial production costs will be a bitch.

[ciaoant1]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

This reminds me of The Innovator's Dilemma, due to disruptive technology, writ large.

There are two "solutions":

1. regulatory suppression of the disruptions, or
2. adapt to the new.

Adapting to dramatically lower industrial production costs will be a bitch.

Sorry if i didn't understand you very well (i am Greek, English is not my native language), but if i understood you correctly, you are just treating lower labour cost as a new technology/investion. I suppose that in a way it is, however people have a major difference compared to a machine, they can think. And IF and WHEN they do, they will realize that it really isn't in their own best interest to adapt to the new lower wage enviroment, and they will revolt. Not a bad thing of course

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

... if i understood you correctly, you are just treating lower labour cost as a new technology...

Yes, that's correct.

I suppose that in a way it is, however people have a major difference compared to a machine, they can think. And IF and WHEN they do, they will realize that it really isn't in their own best interest to adapt to the new lower wage enviroment, and they will revolt. Not a bad thing of course

Sure, people can think (though sometimes I wonder :rolleyes.

The real analogy that drives my thinking here isn't so much the usual examples such as mainframe versus minicomputer versus workstation versus PC versus smart cellphone.

The real analogy that informs my thinking and in which I have extensive experience is the migration from proprietary to open source software. I worked for many years for companies that made good money off the software I wrote, and who had considerable difficulty figuring out how to adopt their business model to open source software that was being developed by a community of my employers competitors.

That same analogy affects me personally as well. If I had not been close enough to retirement to just bug out of the whole affair, then I would have had to adapt to a world in which the other engineers with whom I was working (and competing for work) were scattered points around the globe, often willing and able and delighted to work for a fifth or a tenth of the good Silicon Valley salary I was pulling down. These engineers were sometimes just as good as I was, sometimes better. There was no stopping this competition, short of drastic economic restrictions that would have done grave harm to us all.

People do not necessarily revolt, nor is that necessarily the "right" thing to do. Americans have no particular "right" to the prosperity we've enjoyed, living beyond our means as the consummate consumer for the world these last few decades. Granted, it's been nice "work" while we could get it, but life moves on.

We humans do not yet understand how to arrange the affairs of our civilization so that most humans have a reasonable opportunity for a free, healthy, productive, rewarding life in a variety of possible ways.

[aaron]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

AP IMPACT: Toxic metal in kids' jewelry from China
AP IMPACT: With lead use barred, tests reveal toxic cadmium in children's jewelry from China

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-IMP...&asset=&ccode=


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.

A spokesman for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates children's products, said Sunday that the agency "is opening an investigation" and "will take action as quickly as possible to protect the safety of children."

Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young, according to recent research.

Children don't have to swallow an item to be exposed -- they can get persistent, low-level doses by regularly sucking or biting jewelry with a high cadmium content.

To gauge cadmium's prevalence in children's jewelry, the AP organized lab testing of 103 items bought in New York, Ohio, Texas and California. All but one were purchased in November or December.

The results: 12 percent of the pieces of jewelry contained at least 10 percent cadmium.

Some of the most troubling test results were for bracelet charms sold at Walmart, at the jewelry chain Claire's and at a dollar store. High amounts of cadmium also were detected in "The Princess and The Frog" movie-themed pendants.

"There's nothing positive that you can say about this metal. It's a poison," said Bruce A. Fowler, a cadmium specialist and toxicologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the CDC's priority list of 275 most hazardous substances in the environment, cadmium ranks No. 7.

Jewelry industry veterans in China say cadmium has been used in domestic products there for years. Zinc, the metal most cited as a replacement for lead in imported jewelry being sold in the United States, is a much safer and nontoxic alternative. But the jewelry tests conducted for AP, along with test findings showing a growing presence of cadmium in other children's products, demonstrate that the safety threat from cadmium is being exported.

A patchwork of federal consumer protection regulations does nothing to keep these nuggets of cadmium from U.S. store shelves. If the products were painted toys, they would face a recall. If they were industrial garbage, they could qualify as hazardous waste. But since there are no cadmium restrictions on jewelry, such items are sold legally.

The CPSC has cracked down on the dangers posed by lead and products known to have killed children, such as cribs, it has never recalled an item for cadmium -- even though it has received scattered complaints based on private test results for at least the past two years.

There is no definitive explanation for why children's jewelry manufacturers, virtually all from China in the items tested, are turning to cadmium. But a reasonable double whammy looms: With lead heavily regulated under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, factories scrambled for substitutes, just as cadmium prices plummeted.

That law set a new, stringent standard for lead in children's products: Only the very smallest amount is permissible -- no more than 0.03 percent of the total content. The statute has led manufacturers to drastically reduce lead in toys and jewelry.

The law also contained the first explicit regulation of cadmium, though the standards are significantly less strict than lead and apply only to painted toys, not jewelry.

To determine how much cadmium a child could be exposed to, items are bathed in a solution that mimics stomach acid to see how much of the toxin would leach out after being swallowed.

The jewelry testing for AP was conducted by chemistry professor Jeff Weidenhamer of Ashland University in Ohio, who over the past few years has provided the CPSC with results showing high lead content in products that were later recalled. His lab work for AP assessed how much cadmium was in each item. Overall, 12 of the 103 items each contained at least 10 percent cadmium. Two others contained lower amounts, while the other 89 were clean.

Ten of the items with the highest cadmium content were then run through the stomach acid test to see how much would escape. Although that test is used only in regulation of toys, AP used it to see what hazard an item could pose because unlike the regulations, a child's body doesn't distinguish between cadmium leached from jewelry and cadmium leached from a toy.

"Clearly it seems like for a metal as toxic as cadmium, somebody ought to be watching out to make sure there aren't high levels in items that could end up in the hands of kids," said Weidenhamer.

The CPSC reacted swiftly to the AP story. Agency spokesman Scott Wolfson said: "CPSC will open an investigation into the products tested by Professor Weindenhamer, who we have worked closely with before." He said CPSC would study Weidenhamer's results, attempt to buy the contaminated products content and "take appropriate action as quickly as possible."

Weidenhamer's test results include:

-- Three flip flop bracelet charms sold at Walmart contained between 84 and 86 percent cadmium. The charms fared the worst of any item on the stomach acid test; one shed more cadmium in 24 hours than what World Health Organization guidelines deem a safe exposure over 60 weeks for a 33-pound child.

The bracelet was purchased in August 2008. The company that imported them, Florida-based Sulyn Industries, stopped selling the item to Wal-Mart Corp. in November 2008, the firm's president said. Wal-Mart would not comment on whether the charms are still on store shelves, or how many have been sold.

Sulyn's president, Harry Dickens, said the charms were subjected to testing standards imposed by both Wal-Mart and federal regulation -- but were not tested for cadmium.

In separate written statements, Dickens and Wal-Mart said they consider safety a very high priority. "We consistently seek to sell only those products that meet safety and regulatory standards," Wal-Mart said. "Currently there is no required cadmium standard for children's jewelry."

As was the case with every importer or retailer that responded to AP's request for comment on the tests, neither Sulyn nor Wal-Mart would address whether the results concerned them or if the products should be recalled.

-- Four charms from two "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" bracelets sold at a Dollar N More store in Rochester, N.Y., were measured at between 82 and 91 percent cadmium. The charms also fared poorly on the stomach acid test. Two other charms from the same bracelets were subjected to a leaching test which recreates how much cadmium would be released in a landfill and ultimately contaminate groundwater. Based on those results, if the charms were waste from manufacturing, they would have had to be specially handled and disposed of under U.S. environmental law. The company that imported the Rudolph charms, Buy-Rite Designs, Inc. of Freehold, N.J., has gone out of business.

-- Two charms on a "Best Friends" bracelet bought at Claire's, a jewelry chain with nearly 3,000 stores in North America and Europe, consisted of 89 and 91 percent cadmium. The charms also leached alarming amounts in the simulated stomach test. Informed of the results, Claire's issued a statement pointing out that children's jewelry is not required to pass a cadmium leaching test.

"Claire's has its products tested by independent accredited third-party laboratories approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in compliance with the commission's standards, and has passing test results for the bracelet using these standards," the statement said. Those standards scrutinize lead content, not cadmium.

-- Pendants from four "The Princess and The Frog" necklaces bought at Walmart ranged between 25 and 35 percent cadmium, though none failed the stomach acid test nor the landfill leaching test. The Walt Disney Co., which produced the popular animated movie, said in a statement that test results provided by the manufacturer, Rhode Island-based FAF Inc., showed the item complied with all applicable safety standards.

An official at FAF's headquarters did not respond to multiple requests for comment when informed of Weidenhamer's results; a woman at the company's office in southern China who would not give her name said FAF products "might naturally contain some very small amounts of cadmium. We measure it in parts per million because the content is so small, for instance one part per million." However, the tests conducted for AP showed the pendants contained between 246,000 and 346,000 parts per million of cadmium.

"It comes down to the following: Cadmium causes cancer. How much cadmium do you want your child eating?" said Michael R. Harbut, a doctor who has treated adult victims of cadmium poisoning and is director of the environmental cancer program at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. "In my view, the answer should be none."

Xu Hongli, a cadmium specialist with the Beijing office of Asian Metal Ltd., a market research and consultancy firm, said test results showing high cadmium levels in some Chinese-made metal jewelry did not surprise her. Using cadmium alloys has been "a relatively common practice" among manufacturers in the eastern cities of Yiwu and Qingdao and the southern province of Sichuan, Xu said.

"Some of their products contain 90 percent cadmium or higher," she acknowledged. "Usually, though, they are more careful with export products."

She said she thought that manufacturers were becoming aware of cadmium's dangers, and are using it...



Associated Press writers Alexa Olesen in Beijing and Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Los Angeles, and Associated Press researchers Xi Yue in Beijing and Julie Reed in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report.

[iyamwutiam]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

Does it? Surely the answer is to retool the US economy to produce goods and services that are, or will be, in demand. e.g. Nanotech, biotech, energy products.

What a crazy idea...I need to go lie down.

You do-- that's like a broke ass friend up to his eyeballs in debt talking about how he is going to 'invest' in his future.

[iyamwutiam]

Re: China Overtakes Germany as World's Biggest Exporter

BTW -Arron -if you look into the details of the lead issue -guess who was behind it -and came out and apologized to the Chinese. None other than all-Americans can die if it makes me a profit (american companies). The specific company was Mattel. Makes you proud to be a patriot eh!