China’s imports fell 2.3 percent year-on-year in yuan terms last month, official data showed yesterday, in a possible sign of weakening domestic demand in the world’s second-largest economy.
Exports rose 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the Chinese General Administration of Customs said, while the monthly trade surplus jumped 12.8 percent to 311.2 billion yuan (US$46.5 million).
As the world’s biggest trader in goods China is crucial to the global economy and its performance affects partners from Australia to Zambia, which have been battered by its slowing growth — while it faces headwinds itself in key developed markets.
Photo: Reuters
Customs attributed the fall in import values to weakening commodity prices.
“The input volume of major bulk commodities such as iron ore, crude oil and copper maintained growth,” it said in a statement. “The prices of major import commodities remained low with a narrowing price decline.”
China imports and exports both fell in the first half of the year, by 4.7 percent and 2.1 percent respectively.
Customs said there were “obvious obstacles” blocking China’s foreign trade development, particularly the decline in business in both directions with major trading partners such as the US and ASEAN.
In US dollar terms, last month’s exports fell by a more-than-expected 4.8 percent from a year earlier, while imports declined 8.4 percent, also missing estimates. That left the country with a trade surplus of US$48.11 billion for the month, compared with US$49.98 billion in May, customs said.
Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) told EU officials that the country was committed to market reforms and remained determined to tackle a steel capacity glut that has sharpened tensions between the two sides.
Li, speaking at the China-EU Business Summit in Beijing, said China had always abided by its commitments on reform and would work to improve market access for foreign companies in the hope that all firms could compete on a level playing field.
“We want trade between China and Europe to grow on a stable platform,” he said.
European enterprises working in China have long complained about unfair restrictions that make it difficult for them to compete with local rivals.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the summit that Beijing should remove barriers and improve legal certainties.
China’s sprawling steel sector has come under global scrutiny after a record surge in cheap exports were blamed for plant closures in Britain and elsewhere, sparking a rise in anti-dumping complaints and putting the country’s market economy status in jeopardy.
European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom said that steel overcapacity needlessly pits Chinese and European workers against one another, while Juncker also warned that China’s huge industrial capacity surplus should not be allowed to hurt relations with the EU.
Li said that China was taking strong and determined measures to tackle the problem of overcapacity, adding that China does not use subsidies to give its industries a competitive edge.
“China’s will to solve the problem of steel overcapacity is resolute and our measures are effective,” Li said.
“We hope that the European side can look at this issue from an unbiased perspective,” Li said, calling for the two sides to resolve trade disputes through bilateral discussions.
China is willing to speed up negotiations with the EU to secure bilateral investment deals, Li said, while also calling on the EU to create a stable environment for bilateral trade.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”