China’s record-breaking export strength continued into last month, pushing its annual trade surplus to a new high and providing support to an economy being dragged by a property-market slump and COVID-19 outbreaks.
Exports last month were US$340.5 billion, taking the full year total to US$3.36 trillion, the Chinese General Administration of Customs said in a statement yesterday.
Imports were US$246 billion last month and US$2.69 trillion for last year, leaving a trade surplus of US$94.5 billion for the month and US$676 billion for the full year.
Photo: AFP
The data confirm the picture for all of last year — strong demand for Chinese goods of all kinds as the nation’s factories pumped out everything from electronics to garden furniture.
However, trade growth is expected to be weaker this year as demand for work-from-home technology and healthcare equipment slows, and consumption shifts toward services as COVID-19 restrictions ease.
“Last year’s growth of 30 percent is clearly hard to sustain,” said Ding Shuang (丁爽), lead economist for greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered PLC. “So export growth this year will decline sharply,” partly because global growth is likely to slow down.
China’s domestic restrictions and lockdowns aimed at containing virus outbreaks might also cause some delays, but “the key remains how external demand may evolve,” Ding said.
Outbreaks of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in China are sending jitters through supply chains, as the nation’s production and shipping face disruptions from virus containment measures.
While there has not been widespread damage to industrial output or trade so far, some factories have shut down or slowed output in Xian and elsewhere, and the capacity of ports in Ningbo, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Shanghai have been affected.
There will be more uncertain, unstable and unbalanced factors in foreign trade this year, Chinese customs spokesman Li Kuiwen (李魁文) told a briefing in Beijing.
Even though there is likely to be some pressure on the data, including from a higher base of comparison, the long-term positive fundamentals for trade would not change, Li said.
Global dependence on Chinese production might be reduced if places like Southeast Asia recover from their virus outbreaks.
That would allow companies to move orders back to that region after some businesses shifted production to China recently to take advantage of the nation’s “zero COVID-19” policies.
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