SHANGHAI, Nov 29 (Reuters) - China's export growth is expected to slow only moderately next year despite the slump of the global economy, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a trade expert at the commerce ministry as saying on Saturday.
Mei Xinyu, an analyst at the ministry's Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, predicted exports would grow about 15 percent next year.
That would compare with annual growth of 21.9 percent to $1.20 trillion in the first 10 months of this year. Mei was quoted as saying that while low-end exports such as clothing, shoes and furniture had been hit hard, exports of electrical and electronic products were holding up well.
The global slump is likely to prompt multinational companies to cut costs by moving more of their production operations to China or sourcing more goods from China, Mei said.
He also predicted the Chinese government would take more, unspecified steps to encourage both exports and imports, after raising export tax rebates three times since late July to help exporters. (Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Tomasz Janowski )