China’s trade slumps as slowdown lingers
Print Edition
CHINA’S exports slumped last month while imports continued to tumble as the world’s largest trader of goods delivered a poor performance, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs yesterday.
Exports declined by 14.6 percent from a year earlier to 886.8 billion yuan (US$143 billion) in March, reversing February’s surge of 48.9 percent.
Imports fell by 12.3 percent to 868.6 billion yuan after their 20.1 percent decline a month earlier.
The trade surplus thus narrowed significantly to 18.2 billion yuan from February’s record-making surplus of 370.5 billion yuan.
Huang Songping, a customs spokesman, said the figures were the result of seasonal factors, weak demand at home and abroad, and low commodity prices around the world.
“Generally speaking, China’s foreign trade is on the decline as the global recovery is sluggish and domestic downward pressure is mounting,” Huang said.
Zhou Hao, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, said that while the slowdown in export growth could be due to front-loading effect before the Chinese New Year, overall trade has been sluggish.
“The 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 expand 6.9 percent in the first three months, possibly one of the lowest quarterly growths in six years,” Zhou said.
In the first quarter, China’s trade lost 6 percent year on year, compared with this year’s official target of an increase of around 6 percent.
The central government cut its annual target for foreign trade growth at the start of this year from the previous 7.5 percent after the country’s trade expanded just 3.4 percent in 2014.
Exports still managed to expand 4.9 percent in the first three months to 3.15 trillion yuan, official figures showed, while imports lost 17.3 percent to 2.39 trillion yuan.
Shipments to the United States rose 3.2 percent in the first quarter, while those to ASEAN countries and India grew 4.5 percent and 7 percent, respectively.
Despite the narrowed monthly surplus in March, the first-quarter surplus still shot to 755 billion yuan, or 6.1 times that of a year ago.
The yuan’s exchange rate firmed in the past few weeks despite a strong US dollar.
“We believe the yuan is likely to remain stable,” Zhou said. “However, the weak trade data could add some uncertainty to the yuan’s exchange rate in the short term.”
Xue Jun, an analyst with CITIC Securities Co, said the central government is set to roll out more supportive policies to bolster trade growth.
China’s economy grew 7.4 percent last year, the slowest annual expansion in 24 years. Several indicators for the start of this year, including manufacturing, retail sales and fixed-asset investment, all suggested continued weakness in the economy.
To boost economic growth, the central bank cut interest rates in February for the second time in three months.
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