Directory_and_Chronicle_1936 — Page 386

A6

CHINA

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The United States of America, Japan and Great Britain, with respective aggregates for their imports and exports of $365.6 million, $207.6 million, and $174.3 million, were the countries having the most important trading rela- tions with China during the year under review, and it will be seen that the order of importance of these countries in both the import and the export columns of the table inserted above was the same as that just given for the combined value of the inward and the outward sections of their trade. The position of Hongkong has been disregarded in the foregoing remarks. Actually, in its capacity as a transhipment centre, this colony as usual took more of the export trade than any of the other countries mentioned. In view of the 23 per cent. decline: recorded for the value of the whole inward trade of the country, it is not surprising to find decreases for the inward trade recorded also against almost every individual country listed in the table. The percentage column, therefore, is more informative in many re- spects than the value column, as it discounts this general decline in the volume of importations and reveals exactly any alteration in the share taken. by any particular country in comparison with the preceding year. There are few changes on the import side of the table that seem important enough to call for special comment. As exceptions, attention may be drawn in the first place to the great disparity between the 1933 and the 1934 statistics for Australia. The deficit of $74.8 million in this case clearly is more than ac- counted for by a $66.7 million drop in the value of the wheat import plus a drop of another $9.8 million in the value of the wheat flour imports from that country. It may be noted here that China's total purchases of wheat fell from a value of $87.9 million in 1933 to $32 million in 1934, and that of the latter total 20.8 million dollars' worth came from the United States in ful- filment, for the most part, of the Wheat and Cotton Loan Agreement of 1933. Incidentally, these wheat purchases were a clear gain to the account of the United States of America, from which country only a negligible quantity weighing 500 quintals was imported in 1933 against 8.4 million quintals from Australia. In addition to the remarks on these two accounts, it may be noted that, largely due to Government action in suppressing the Anti- Japanese Boycott Associations throughout the country, Japan increased her share of the import trade by over 26 per cent. and dispossessed Great Britain from second place in the list of suppliers of this country's needs.

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As regards the export side of the table, it may be noted that there are only eight countries (excluding the British colony of Hongkong) that take more than they give to China, and that France is no longer one of these. Smaller purchases of Chinese white and yellow silk, groundnuts, and egg products were more than sufficient to alter the balance of this latter account. As already stated, the United States, Japan, and Great Britain were the principal support of the Chinese export trade. Of these countries, however, Great Britain was the only one to increase her purchases during the year under review, both of the other countries not only buying less than in the previous year but taking a smaller proportionate share of the total outward trade

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IMPORTS

The value of the import trade declined by 23.4 per cent., the comparative figures for 1933 and 1934 being respectively $1,345 million and $1,030 million. Table III in the article "Value of Trade" supplies data for making any further comparisons with the annual trading results during the past quarter of a century; and the introductory chapter to this report covers at least the outstanding national and international trading features of the year under review, including mention of the latest tariff modification's introduced in this country. To show this section of trade in outline, therefore, it will be sufficient to present here two additional tables of a general nature. The first of these tables displays comparative statistics for the year 1933 and 1934 arranged according to the main groupings used in the "Monthly Returns of the Foreign Trade of China" and further arranged according to the order of importance assumed by these groupings during the year under review.