and educators tries to provide you a better understanding of a major market event scheduled

during the next week. This week we will focus on the Chinese trade balance report due which

is usually released the first week of each month. This month the report is due on February

8th. The Trade Balance measures the difference

in value between imported and exported goods and services over the reported period. A positive

number indicates that more goods and services were exported than imported. Since the global

economy is so dependent on Chinese imports and export this release is crucial to the

markets. There are three major parts of the release, the total trade balance and then

total imports and exports. As China reinvents its economy these numbers are more important

as imports into China continue to grow as consumer purchases steadily grow. The Chinese

domestic economy is growing faster as the government pushes internal project to help

stimulate growth. China’s trade balance has a great effect

on the New Zealand and Australian dollars as well as industrial metals. With Chinas

GDP slowing significantly traders look closely at these numbers. Gross domestic product expanded

an annual 7.3 per cent in the third quarter, the slowest since the height of the global

financial crisis in early 2009 and economists are broadly expecting there to have been further

weakness at the end of last year and in the year ahead as authorities face what they themselves

openly describe as a “new normal” of slower, and hopefully, more sustainable expansion.

Under the government's reform initiatives, the private sector currently generates more

than 60 percent of the nation's economic output and more than 90 percent of new jobs each

year. The world's second largest economy grew 7.4

percent in 2014, marking the weakest annual expansion in 24 years. Despite the slowdown,

the private sector had stabilized employment as the country managed to create 13.22 million

new jobs last year, beating the government's target of 10 million for the year.

China’s export sector has had a passable year, with demand from the wider world up

modestly. Exports are forecast to grow 6.6% on-year in December, up from 4.7% in November,

according to the Journal’s survey. But China’s imports have stumbled this year,

with demand weak amid uncertainty over the strength of the economy and soft raw materials

prices dragging down the value of China’s purchases. The poll predicts inbound shipments

will drop 7% in December, after a 6.7% fall the month before. That will keep China’s

gaping trade surplus wide open – the economists predict a $49.4 billion balance for the month.