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China trade value misses official target in 1st quarter
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CHINA'S trade lost 6 percent from a year earlier in the first quarter, much worse than the official target of an increase of 6 percent for this year, according to the General Administration of Customs today.
Exports still managed to expand 4.9 percent in the first three months to 3.15 trillion yuan (US$508 billion), the data showed, while imports lost 17.3 percent to 2.39 trillion yuan.
The trade surplus thus landed at 755 billion yuan, or 6.1 times of the amount a year ago.
In March alone, exports unexpectedly contracted 14.6 percent (calculated in yuan), compared with the rise of 48.3 percent in February, and imports decreased 12.3 percent, which was better than the cut of 20.5 percent a month earlier.
Huang Songping, a spokesman at the customs, said the surprisingly volatile performance in March was a result of seasonal factors and really weak demand at both home and abroad.
Zhou Hao, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, said while the sharp slowdown in export growth could be due to front-loading effect before the Chinese New Year, the overall trade has been sluggish.
"The extremely weak import growth suggests that China's first-quarter growth could have fallen to below 7 percent," Zhou said.
"We forecast China's economy to grow 6.9 percent in the first three months, possibly one of the lowest quarterly growth in six years," Zhou said.
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