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 July 2008.

China's state-volunteered export data is notoriously inaccurate, tending to dramatically understate both the quantity and value. Although the specific numbers may be suspect, the data does offer insight to general trends in volume, growth, and pricing which have proven valuable in terms of general industry analysis.

Export data for September 2008 :

280,630,000 bearings
total value : USD $195.3 million
average value : USD $0.695 each

Contrary to most popular opinion, the global economic slowdown is clearly affecting bearing manufacturers in China.

Although there is some seasonality apparent in the bearing export data supplied, China's third quarter bearing exports have dropped more sharply than in previous years. July reported 324 million bearings, August was 312 million, and now September comes in under 281 million.

July and August were well above their 2007 counterparts, but September is lower than 2007.

For the calendar year through September, China said it has exported just under 2.8 billion bearings, valued at $1.57 billion -- up from 2.4 billion in 2007 worth $1.12 billion.

Even with the slowdown, total bearing exports should be up at least 11% overall for 2008 from 2007.