[LINK] "Alarm Bell Rings in Tokyo at Rapid Rise in German Exports to China"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Yoshiaki Nohara reports on Germany's advantage over Japan in China.

As if Japan didn't have enough economic problems to overcome, officials in Tokyo have identified another worrying trend: lagging export growth to China.

Rapid gains in German shipments to China have caught their attention, with exports from the European powerhouse doubling in value since 2008 and reaching 74.5 billion euros ($82.5 billion) last year.

Japanese sales to China, the nation's biggest trading partner, crept up by just 3.3 percent over the same period. Japan still holds a solid lead though, with to 13.4 trillion yen ($109 billion) worth of shipments to China in 2014.

To be sure, part of the weakness in these Japanese export figures is because companies from Toyota Motor Corp to air-conditioner maker Daikin Industries Ltd. have been building factories in growing markets like China. While the profits from these plants are brought home, it means less industrial production in Japan.

[. . . T]otal exports account for about 15 percent of Japan's gross domestic product, compared with around 40 percent for Germany, according to a report by the statistics bureau in Tokyo.