Weak demand pushes surplus to record high
Print Edition
CHINA’S trade slumped in January, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs yesterday, a decline attributed to weak global demand and the earlier Spring Festival holiday.
Exports were down 6.6 percent from a year earlier to 1.14 trillion yuan (US$174.6 billion) last month, compared to the growth of 2.3 percent in December.
Imports contracted 14.4 percent to 737.5 billion yuan, widening from the 4 percent decline seen in the previous month.
As a result, January’s trade surplus shot up to 406.2 billion yuan, a record high and up 12.2 percent year on year.
The previous high was December’s surplus of 382.1 billion yuan.
“China’s exports fell sharply, suggesting weak global demand,” said Liu Ligang, chief economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. “The decrease of imports was in part due to still low commodity prices.”
Liu said the earlier Chinese New Year this year compared to 2015 had distorted annual growth rates as traders tended to increase shipments in December.
Wendy Chen, a research analyst at Nomura, said the trade figures, together with other indicators, suggested growth momentum in China was weakening further.
“As China’s retail sales remained stable, the trade slump mainly reflected weakening investment demand, possibly from weaker property investment and measures to reduce overcapacity,” she said.
China’s economy had a bumpy start this year as figures for January remained weak due to the earlier holiday and the extremely cold weather. Factories continued to report contracted activities while service providers also saw poorer business.
China’s gross domestic product grew 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, with the figure for 2015 ending at 6.9 percent, the slowest annual expansion in a quarter of a century.
In January, China’s trade decreased 9.8 percent to 1.88 trillion yuan, the customs figures showed. It deteriorated further from last year’s contraction of 7 percent, when China missed its target of a 6 percent rise.
The European Union remained China’s largest trading partner last month, although its trade with China declined 9.9 percent to 290.3 billion yuan. It was followed by the United States and the ASEAN countries, which shipped goods worth 269.8 billion yuan and 234.2 billion yuan respectively, declines of 9.9 percent and 10.8 percent.
Foreign trade involving domestic private firms delivered the best performance by increasing 1.1 percent during the period, while foreign-invested traders said their business declined 14.3 percent and state-owned traders reported a contraction of 21.9 percent.
Shanghai’s trade retreated 6.1 percent to 219.4 billion yuan last month.
The record level trade surplus indicated that China continued to run a large current account, said Liu.
“This should help offset some of the capital outflow and alleviate some depreciation pressure on the yuan,” Liu said.
At the weekend, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China’s central bank, said that China was not facing large depreciation pressure and did not need to depreciate the yuan to boost exports.
Premier Li Keqiang has said China will not promote exports through currency depreciation.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
