China’s trade surplus widened last month as imports barely budged, sharpening fears that the world’s second-biggest economy is not doing enough to stimulate domestic demand and counter a slowdown.
Imports edged up 0.3 percent to US$144.8 billion last month, while exports rose 4.9 percent to US$163.3 billion, leaving a surplus of US$18.4 billion, according to customs data released yesterday.
That compared with a surplus of US$5.35 billion in March and a deficit of US$31.5 billion in February. China often has a large trade deficit early in the year as factories restock after their long lunar new year holiday break.
Photo: AFP
The weak import numbers could be a sign Chinese policymakers had failed to boost demand by businesses and consumers for imported goods and raises concerns about whether China would be able to bounce back from slowing growth.
In March, imports rose 5.3 percent, while exports climbed nearly 9 percent. The figures for last month, especially weakening exports to the 27-nation EU —China’s biggest trading partner — were a disappointment, economists said.
“If the eurozone falls into a deep recession, and that in turn slows US growth, China’s export growth will be impacted,” ANZ economists Liu Li-gang (劉利剛) and Zhou Hao (周浩) said in an analysis.
A downturn in China’s property sector has stalled construction, sharply reducing demand. Slowing imports also reflect falling prices, as well as volumes, for key commodities, such as iron ore and crude oil.
South Korea also recently reported weak trade figures, seen as a sign of prolonged weakness in global trade, Yao Wei (姚煒), economist with Societe Generale in Hong Kong, said in a comment before China released its trade data.
Demand in China has weakened as the government sought to cool inflation and steer the growth of the world’s second-largest economy to a more sustainable level after 2010’s explosive double-digit expansion.
Growth eased to 8.1 percent in the first quarter of this year after Beijing tightened lending and investment curbs.
Weak demand from China is unwelcome news for Australia, Brazil and Asian economies that sell it oil, iron ore and industrial components.
So far for this year, China’s exports have risen nearly 7 percent, while imports rose 5 percent, yielding a surplus for January-April of US$19.3 billion.
Chinese exports to the EU fell 2 percent last month, while its imports rose 4 percent, leaving a surplus of US$11.6 billion.
While the EU’s struggles with government debt problems are sapping demand there, China’s exports to the US jumped 12 percent to US$28.1 billion. Imports rose just 3.2 percent to US$11.3 billion, leaving its politically volatile trade surplus at US$16.89 billion.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day