CHINA
A17
;
Marking a further step in the development of international wireless com, munications, direct radio service between Shanghai and Rome was officially inaugurated on the 21st January 1935. Shanghai is now connected with 13 foreign stations over the air, namely, Manila, Hongkong, Batavia, Berlin, Paris, Saigon, Geneva, Moscow, Macao, San Francisco, London,, Tokyo, and Rome. The International Radio Station at Shanghai installed a set of radio- telephone equipment during the year. Trial conversations were held with London, Tokyo, and some other foreign stations and the results were satisfac- tory. The service will be made available to the public in the near future. Preparations for establishing a radio-telephone system between Shanghai and Canton and between Shanghai and Hankow have been completed: this system will soon be open for public use.
!
THE SUMMING UP
:
In his summing up on the conditions of trade in 1935, Mr. Osborne writes:→ As will have been seen from the paragraph entitled "Value of Trade" imports declines in value by 10.8 per cent. while exports improved in value by 7.7 per cent., the adverse balance of trade for the year amounting to 343 million dollars. The total value of trade for the year amounted to 1,495 million dollars and is the lowest recorded since the year 1918, when the value was 1,294 million dollars. During the intervening years the volume of trade tended upwards until at the peak of the so-called boom years the value reached 2,917 million dollars in 1931. Concurrently with the increase in the volume of trade there occurred, however, an alarming increase in the adverse balance, which rose in terms of percentage of exports from 20.44 per cent. in 1918 to 118.80 per cent. in 1931 and 167.84 per cent. in 1932. While the volume of trade has faller since 1931, the adverse balance has been very considerably corrected, being, in percentage of exports, 119.77 per cent. for the year 1938, 92.52 per cent for the year 1924, and 59.55 per cent. only for the year under review.
The following table showing the adverse balance of China's. trade since 1927, as it was including Manchurian trade up to June 1932, and as it would have been had China been deprived earlier of the favourable balance enjoyed on Manchurian experts; is enlightening in that it shows the extent to which Manchurian trade assisted in the past in the balancing of China's trade account. From this year 1933 onwards the figures in the two columns of course agree!
ADVERSE BALANCE OF TRADE SINCE 1927.
Including Manchurian Trade
up to June 1932...
Excluding Manchurian
YEAR.
Excess of
Percentage of
Excess of
Imports.
Exports.
Imports.
Trade.
Percentage of Exports.
Million $
Million $
1927
147
10.27
:
.318
32,45
1928
319
20.66
483
.46.13
1929
390.
24.65
550
51.40
1930
647
46.41
779
82.52
1931
816
57.59
1,087
118.80
1932
868
113.17
955.
167.84
1933
733
119.77.
733
119.77
1934
495
1935
343
92.52 59.55
495
92.52
243
59.55
In normal years up to 1932 such adverse balance as China had, influenced as it was by fluctuating exchange, was no doubt liquidated in large measure by such invisible exports as remittances from overseas Chinese, foreign expenditure in China, and an excess of exports on unrecorded overland trade, but from that year on began the outflow of silver instead of the custom- ary influx a state of affairs which became accentuated on the rise in the world price of silver, which was conducive to an appreciation of China's