China posted trade surplus of $60.34 billion for the month, the General Administration of Customs said on Tuesday, higher than forecasts for $46.8 billion.
Advertisement
BEIJING-China’s imports and exports fell in September, according new data released Tuesday, in further signs of headwinds for the world’s second-largest economy.
Beijing has targeted annual growth for this year at about 7%, the slowest in a quarter century.
Evans-Pritchard also said that import data had become unreliable given massive swings in prices due to the commodity downturn and a divergence between prices and trading volumes.
Highlighting persistent weakness in demand at home and overseas, China’s combined exports and imports fell 8.1 percent in the first nine months of the year from the same period in 2014, well below the full-year official target of 6 percent growth.
The year-to-date decline in trade suggests “this sector is in recession”, Citigroup economist Minggao Shen said in a report.
But the task is proving challenging.
The government has cut interest rate five times since November and pumped money into the economy through spending on public works construction.
The worldwide Monetary Fund last week warned that the country could be headed for a hard landing unless leaders get a grip on the current crisis. But slowing growth has resulted in a global slide in commodity prices – bad news for commodity-dependent supplier economies that have staked their future on constantly rising demand.
At the weekend, Premier Li Keqiang urged local authorities to accelerate provision of affordable housing, raising hopes that raw materials demand will rise. Exports to every major market except Taiwan rose from August, as did imports.
Exports were down 3.7 percent on year, beating expectations for a decline of 6.0 percent following the 5.5 percent fall in the previous month.
Advertisement
The trade surplus for the month almost doubled to 376.2 billion yuan, Customs said. “However, there is a better chance that we’re probably near the trough level of growth and may expect better readings” in the current quarter.
