RIYADH: China posted an all-time high trade surplus of $84.5 billion in October, compared with a surplus of $57.3 billion a year ago, Arab News quoted official data, as showing.
This was fuelled by a surge in China’s exports in October, growing by 27.1 per cent from a year ago to stand at $300.2 billion. Most noticeably, exports of rare earths experienced considerable expansion, increasing by 89 per cent.
Imports jumped by a slower yearly rate of 20.6 per cent in October to reach $215.7 billion. Imports of coal soared by 96.2 per cent, while purchases of natural gas went up by 24.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, the country’s foreign exchange reserves increased slightly in October, reaching $3.22 trillion up from $3.20 trillion in the previous month.
Indonesia’s growth
Indonesia’s economy in the third quarter of 2021 recorded a quarterly expansion of 1.6 per cent, falling from last quarter’s growth of 3.3 per cent, Statistics Indonesia said.
Government spending growth shrank considerably from the last quarter’s 28.7 per cent to 9 per cent. Similarly, household consumption went down by 0.2 per cent compared to a growth of 1.3 per cent in the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, exports jumped by 9.3 per cent while imports declined by 1.2 per cent.
On an annual basis, Indonesia’s economic growth eased from 7.1 per cent in the second quarter to 3.5 per cent in this year’s third quarter. This was mainly caused by restrictions implemented to limit the delta variant’s spread.
Canada’s unemployment
The Canadian unemployment rate decreased for the fifth consecutive month in October to reach 6.7 per cent, down from 6.9 per cent in September, Statistics Canada revealed.
This is the lowest level of unemployment since the start of the pandemic and was driven by a reopening of non-essential venues following implementation of vaccination requirements.
Eurozone’s construction
The Eurozone’s construction Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose moderately to 51.2 in October compared to the 50 recorded in the previous month, IHS Markit revealed.
This is the first expansion in the indicator since June of this year and was partly caused by healthier demand and rising workloads. Additionally, house building was the strongest sub-sector in the Eurozone.
Also, the growth in job creation was the highest since February 2020.
Consumer confidence
Consumer confidence in Mexico went up slightly to 43.6 per cent in October up from 43.4 per cent in the previous month, the country’s official statistics authority said.
The improvement was partly due to a betterment in consumers’ outlook for the economy next year and an enhanced view on the country’s current economic conditions.
Spain’s consumer confidence edged down to 97.3 in October compared the previous month’s 98.3, data released by the Spanish public research institute CIS showed.
A fall in consumer expectations was mainly responsible for the index’s decline.
