German Bank predicts 23% growth in China

Germany's Deutsche Bank predicts China's exports will soar by 23 percent this year, citing optimism over the United States economy and improved technologies and competitiveness of Chinese exports.

The bank's report on investing in China, says appreciation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, has not had a negative effect on exports.

Dr. Jun Ma, chief economist of Deutsche Bank Greater China says although the yuan has appreciated 6.4 percent, the growth rate of China's exports declined only 1.2 percent last year. The growth rate of exports in 2005 was 28.4 percent, said Dr. Ma.

The growth of China's exports was also not effected by other policies, including new export taxes, reduce export tax rebates, and rising costs for land, labor and environmental protection, said Ma.

He says measures adopted by the Chinese government designed to dampen inflation, quell real estate market speculation and cool China's overheated stock markets might have a short-term impact on shares prices, but are not likely to negatively effect exporters.

The Chinese government will continue to raise taxes on the export of certain raw materials while slashing export tax rebates on export of commodities that require a lot of energy to produce or adversely affect the environment.

Ma says Sino-American trade disputes could have hurt some exporters.

China's imports and exports were valued at more than 1.76 trillion U.S. dollars last year, an increase of 23.8 percent from a year ago. Exports were worth 969 billion U.S. dollars, up 27.2 percent, while imports were valued at 792 billion U.S. dollars, up 20 percent.