China’s trade dip less than November’s
BEIJING — China’s overall trade shrank in December, but the decline was smaller than November’s.
Exports declined 1.4 percent from a year earlier to $224.1 billion, an improvement over the previous month’s 6.8 percent contraction, customs data showed Wednesday. Imports were down 7.6 percent to $164 billion, a smaller loss than November’s 8.7 percent fall.
China’s trade data reflect weak global demand and a decline in domestic economic growth, but economists say retail spending and manufacturing might be improving.
Economic growth fell to a six-year low of 6.9 percent in the quarter that ended in September. Full-year growth is expected to come in at or just below 7 percent.
“China’s improved trade data in December will probably act to reassure global investors unnerved by the recent volatility in the country’s financial and foreignexchange markets,” said Tom Rafferty of the Economist Intelligence Unit in a report. “The data is in line with other indicators that suggest China’s economy is stabilizing on the back of sustained stimulus measures.”
In December, the country’s global trade surplus widened by 21 percent to $60.1 billion.
For the full year, exports were off 2.8 percent at $2.3 trillion and imports were down 14.1 percent at $1.7 trillion. The global trade surplus was $594 billion.
The country’s trade surplus in December with the European Union, its biggest trading partner, swelled 36.8 percent to $15.6 billion. The surplus with the United States contracted 6 percent to $19.4 billion.
“The Chinese economy is stabilizing rather than collapsing,” said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd. in Sydney. “Last week’s renewed share market turmoil in China owed more to regulatory issues around the share market than telling us much about the state of the Chinese economy.”
China imported a record amount of crude last year as oil’s lowest annual average price in more than a decade spurred stockpiling and increased demand from independent refiners. Iron ore imports jumped to a record last month, while steel exports climbed as the nation sells its glut overseas.
“China’s purchases of major commodities remain on trend, and even accelerated slightly in December,” Bloomberg Intelligence economists Tom Orlik and Fielding Chen wrote in a note. “Commodities markets might be concerned about China’s growth outlook, but based on current purchases there’s little cause for alarm.”
The increase in exports in December compared with the previous month may prove to be a temporary one attributed to a seasonal jump at the end of the year, and it doesn’t represent a trend, a spokesman for the customs office said after a briefing in Beijing.
“There will be some frontloading of shipments before the Chinese New Year, but that boost could fizzle again quickly thereafter,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. “Exports are unlikely to deliver a growth impulse this year to China and the rest of Asia. It’s all about domestic demand. Don’t look to the external side to pull Asia out of its growth malaise.”