TPT March 2010

G lobal M arketplace

› China maintains that this stability assists the recovery of the global economy, as well as its own. While the US and other governments claim that currency controls and subsidies contribute too heavily to China’s export success, at least a few Western economists expect the problem to ease as, sooner or later, China is compelled to acknowledge to itself that development into a market- based economy mandates a flexible currency. Ideally, the ensuing loosening of controls would allow other Asian currencies to rise as the region leads a rebound in global growth. › In the meantime, any reckoning of China would have to see her as importer as well as exporter. Chinese imports recorded an even stronger rebound than exports in December, growing 56%

year-on-year, according to figures supplied by GAC. The Chinese customs agency said that the country’s trade surplus shrank by 34.2% to $196.07bn in 2009, reflecting stronger demand for imported raw materials and consumer goods. Commodities were among the key imports, GAC said, with China bringing in 630 million tons of iron ore, up 41.6% from 2008; and 200 million tons of crude oil, for an increase of 13.9%. Economists say China has also been seizing the opportunity presented by the 2008 plunge in commodity prices to build up its stockpiles of copper and other metals. Opening a new phase in the steel pipe wars, the US imposes tariffs on oil country material imported from China Predictably, the late-2009 decision by an American trade panel to give final approval for penalty tariffs of 10.36% to 15.78% on Chinese-made steel pipe drew an angry response from Beijing. In the biggest US trade case to date against China, the International Trade Commission, a US agency, voted 6-0 to impose the duties set in November by the Commerce Department to offset subsidies allegedly extended by the Chinese government to domestic pipe makers. The United Steelworkers union had joined United States Steel Corp (Pittsburgh), Maverick Tube Corp (Chesterfield, Missouri), and other domestic manufacturers in requesting the import duties on Chinese-

The US and China have come to blows over the supply of steel pipes

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