The government of China, General Administration of Customs, via the state-controlled Xinhua news, has released data covering its exports of all types of bearings, for August 2008.

Note that all of China's state-volunteered export data is notoriously inaccurate, tending to understate both quantity and value so that peaks and troughs can be smoothed. Similarly, it is manipulated so that specific manufacturing sectors appear to better track the government's five-year central plan.

But although specific numbers are suspect, the overall data points offer insight to general trends in volume, growth, and pricing.

Export data for August 2008 :

310,240,000 bearings

total value : USD $201.4 million

average value : USD $0.64 each

For the calendar year through August, China said it has exported just shy of 2.4 billion bearings, valued at nearly $1.4 billion (average $0.575).

Through August, bearing export volume was up 12% over 2007, but the total value of those bearings was up more than 40% over 2007.

Compared to July, August's export volume was down 13.2 million sets, but the average value of each bearing rose substantially, by $0.02 (3%). No details were available about how much of that average price increase was due to price increases, and how much to a broader sales mix including more high-value bearings.