The U.S. decision to raise interest rates will have some impact on China’s trade but how much is not immediately known, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday (December 17).
The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade on Wednesday (December 16), signalling faith that the U.S. economy had largely overcome the wounds of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The U.S. central bank’s policy-setting committee raised the range of its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to between 0.25 percent and 0.50 percent, ending a lengthy debate about whether the economy was strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs.
“Whether (U.S. interest rate increase) will have impact, I think firstly, the interest rate increase by the U.S. Federal Reserve will have some direct or indirect impact on China’s international business and trade, including international trade, export, import, investment; secondly, (as for) how much of the impact will be, at present (we) will have to do a specific analysis depending on the circumstances of the interest raise, the scale of the interest raise and the implementation of other supporting policies (on which) we will do an assessment,” the spokesman of China’s Commerce Ministry Shen Danyang told media at a monthly briefing in Beijing.
Shen also expected China’s retail sales in 2015 will probably grow by around 10.7 percent year on year.
“China’s social consumer retail sales grew 10.6 percent cumulatively form January to November, 0.1 percent growth compared to the first three quarters. It’s expected that China’s retail sales in this year will probably grow by around 10.7 percent,” Shen said.
China’s non-financial outbound direct investment (ODI) in November rose 12.6 percent from a year earlier to $8.92 billion, the ministry said.
ODI surged to $7.91 billion in October, up 14.3 percent compared with the same period the previous year.
Last week, the Commerce Ministry said China attracted 704.33 billion yuan, which they said was the equivalent of $114 billion, in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first 11 months of 2015, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier. (Reuters)
