A release by the General Admission of Customs shows that China's total trade was 763.49 billion USD January-May, down 24.7% from the same period of last year.  Total export was 426.14 billion USD, down 21.8%.  Total import was 337.35 billion USD, down 28%.  Total trade surplus was 88.79 billion USD, up 15.7% from last year, with net increase of 12.05 billion USD.

Total trade in May was 164.13 billion USD, down 25.9% from last year, export was 88.76 billion USD, down 26.4% year-on-year, and import was 75.37 billion USD, down 25.2% from last May.  Compared with April, total trade, export, and import were down 3.9%, 3.4%, and 4.4% respectively.

The drop compared with April is the most worrisome sign.  As can be seen from the chart, the year on year comparison can be questionable, especially when there was a big increase in the first half of last year.  However, the drop from April changed the upward trend set up in the last several months.  Had the May trade volume been bigger than April, even though the year-on-year comparison had been down, the result could still confirm that China's economy is really turning around.  However, the trade numbers in May make this hope dimmed, at least for the time being. 

Even though China has been trying to boost domestic consumption and demand, stabilizing export has always been one of the government's policy objectives.  Very recently, the government just increased export tax rebate to encourage export.  In any sense, the May number is disappointing.  The only possible excuse would be the May Day holiday could have slowed down international trade activities.  Looking back into May 2006 and May 2007, the values were lower than April.  Even for 2008, the May import was also lower.