Well, “weak” is a relative term. June exports had been up 11 per cent on the previous corresponding month. The market's average crystal-ball gazer had predicted growth of 8 per cent for July on the previous July and therefore was disappointed that last month's exports were up just 1 per cent. 'Slump' story What those bare figures don't show is that July 2011 was a boomer month for Chinese exporters, thus “providing unfavourable base effects”, as TD Securities economist Annette Beacher wrote to clients while putting inverted commas around the “slump” story and as the People's Daily mentioned later in its story. So while the growth number disappointed, it still meant China exported $US177 billion worth of stuff last month, not all that far below the all-time record high of $US181 billion set in May, but not nearly good enough according to the head statistician Zheng Yuesheng, as quoted by Xinhua: "The July data were poor indeed. It will be an arduous task to fulfil our foreign trade target, as external demand is weak." China's July import growth also disappointed the market – a rise of 4.7 per cent when the survey of economists predicted 7 per cent and June was up 6.3 per cent. The latest figure does look closer to the graph's trend over the past year than the breakneck growth as China roared back for the first two years from the GFC.

(As a side issue, it's tempting to make a point about the greater importance of emerging market trade by noting July exports to Europe fell more than 16 per cent while overall exports still rose that 1 per cent – but the Europe figure did have a particularly sharp base effect.) Main driver But enough on exports. Despite the rhetoric of some trade sabre-rattlers, they are not China's main economic growth driver anyway. That title belongs to construction and infrastructure investment – the sort of stuff that is indicated by China's investment growth which remained steady last month at a remarkable 20.4 per cent. Think for a moment about what fixed-asset investment growth of 20.4 per cent in a large economy means and it's extremely hard to be disappointed by such a figure. It typifies a fault in much of the casual commentary on China's economy that people have become caught up in the idea that there was a problem if the rate of growth didn't keep increasing – something it clearly can't do.

Thus there was more disappointment that China's retail sales were “only” up by 13.1 per cent on the previous corresponding month – that pesky survey of economists had tipped a repeat of June's 13.7 per cent. What wouldn't the rest of the world's shopkeepers give for sales growth of 13-point-anything per cent? And then there was industrial production, up 9.2 per cent, but the economists had predicted 9.5 per cent. A further cause for disappointment. China merely growing very quickly instead of extremely quickly poses interesting challenges for those tasked with marrying the growth of commodities supply with the growth of Chinese commodity demand. It doesn't mean there's a problem with the Chinese economy. Nonetheless, the cadres' commentary points to further Beijing action to keep said economy up to the desired speed of something close to 8 per cent growth, surpassing the “official” forecast of 7.5 per cent. Trimming

Getting back to the first “weak exports” story cited earlier, the fourth paragraph recorded that Barclays cuts its 2012 growth estimate for China after the industrial production figures. It wasn't until the 11th paragraph that the changed estimate was spelt out: a trimming from 8.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent – in anyone's language, still about 8 per cent. A nervous world urgently needs China's growth to remain strong and Australia needs that more than most. The market is working itself into a state about this quarter's performance in the hope that the June quarter's 7.6 per cent was the bottom of the current cycle. Last week's clutch of statistics did not indicate the economy was powering out of the blocks in the first of the three months of this closely-watched period. The good news is that, so far, China's growth nevertheless does remain strong. As the RBA keeps saying, China's growth has moderated to a more sustainable pace. There's not enough in last week's numbers to suggest it is slowing further. The conundrum the febrile market seems unable to grasp is that as China continues to grow, the rate of growth has to ease. In a few more years, it has to get down to about 7 per cent and by the end of the next decade, 5 per cent would be very fine indeed.

Loading One more time for the dummies - 7 per cent of 200 is 40 per cent more than 10 per cent of 100. Michael Pascoe is a BusinessDay contributing editor.