From the Australian Financial Review:

  • Analysts sceptical about the country’s trade data following a three-month run of much better than expected results.
  • Results from China’s biggest trading partners, eg. Taiwan and Hong Kong, don’t correspond
  • Nor do manufacturing surveys (the PMIs)

Exports grew more than 20 per cent in both January and February, even though the debt problems across Europe, one of China’s biggest trading partners, have worsened.

I don’t think questions about the veracity of Chinese data will ever be answered. Ever.

China trade booms but doubts raised about data (gated)