China’s imports and exports growth slowed down in August due to global economic growth slowdown and monetary crisis in emerging markets, while imports growth kept higher than exports growth. The exports growth posted 20 percent year on year. Analysts predicted that trade surplus will narrow significantly for the whole year.
The country’s exports rose by 9.8 percent in US dollar terms year on year, while imports climbed by 20 percent in August, both posting a slower growth from previous month, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC).
The exports growth in August was a little worse than previous market expectation. Slowing growth in exports of major global countries, fluctuating PMI of developed economies, and uncertainties in global economic recovery may exert negative influences on China’s exports, said Li Chao, chief analyst at Huatai Securities.
Statistics showed that China’s exports to emerging economies slipped in the month. Specifically, its exports to Brazil and Russia dropped by 217 million US dollars and 125 million US dollars from the previous month, respectively.
“Some countries suffered monetary crisis due to turmoil in some emerging economies, leading to decrease in exports to these emerging countries. This is also a major contributor to the slowing exports growth in August,” said Liu Xuezhi, senior researcher at financial research center of Bank of Communications.
However, China’s imports and exports to major markets including the European Unions, the US, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Japan kept hiking during January and August.
Despite slowdown in imports increase, it still moved up 20 percent year on year in August. It has increased by over 10 percent for 6 consecutive months, indicating that policies of expanding imports continued to take effect.
Li said that China has rolled out a series of policies to encourage imports. Besides, growth in infrastructure investment is expected to rebound in the second half of the year. These will further push up imports of basic manufacturing raw material like iron ore.
As of the future trend of foreign trade, it is widely predicted that exports growth is likely to slow down, but exports may still keep faster growth. Trade surplus for the whole year will narrow remarkably.
Translated by Vanessa Chan
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