US, EU demand boosts China trade Chinese exports grew at a faster rate than expected in November, helped by strong shipments to the US and EU, and suggesting that the domestic economy is facing lighter headwinds than earlier in the year. The government said November shipments rose 12.7 per cent from a year earlier, a much higher rate than the roughly 7 per cent clip expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and Reuters. Just one day after trade ministers agreed the first global trade deal in a generation, the General Administration of Customs said the cumulative trade balance for the first 11 months of the year had increased to $234bn. "There are signs that the global activity and trade cycle is gaining momentum, driven by the recovery in high income countries, and China's exporters are benefiting from that," Louis Kuijs, an economist with RBS, wrote in a research note. ANZ bank said strong export figures were due to better demand from developed economies. Shipments to the US rose 18 per cent, a big jump from October's 8 per cent rise, while exports to the EU grew 18 per cent, compared to 13 per cent in the previous month. The rise in Chinese exports comes several days after the US revised sharply upwards its gross domestic product figures for the third quarter, saying the economy grew an annualised 3.6 per cent. Chinese imports in November grew 5.3 per cent, which Mr Kuijs said suggested "solid expansion of China's domestic demand." China imported 23.57m tonnes of crude and 2.8m tonnes of refined products in November, with oil imports so far this year up 3 per cent as Chinese oil importers benefited from lower international crude prices. Unwrought copper imports rebounded from an October dip to 435,613 tonnes, with copper scrap accounting for another 430,000 tonnes. Manufacturers are finishing out the year, with a lull in factory operations to begin in mid-January ahead of the Lunar New Year. Separately, on Saturday, Chinese state media said regulators would step up efforts to make sure that companies were using foreign currency obtained for trade deals for genuine transactions. Xinhua, the state news agency, said the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the country's foreign exchange regulator, would "intensify supervision on commercial banks" trade finance businesses to curb fake financing activities and prevent abnormal cross-border forex movement." China has faced criticism over the past year as export figures from its customs authorities appeared at odds with the numbers recorded by places like Hong Kong through which many Chinese goods are re-exported. Critics have suggested that companies were disguising capital inflows as trade invoices to help them evade China's capital controls. Exporters also came under more scrutiny over suggestions that they were faking orders in order to gain tax rebates that the government provides to companies that export.