Beijing--China suffered an across-the-board decline in trade in March, the government said Monday, days ahead of GDP data expected to show another slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.
Exports fell an unexpected 15.0 percent year-on-year in March to $144.57 billion, the General Administration of Customs said, while imports tumbled 12.7 percent to $141.49 billion.
The monthly trade surplus, which had hit consecutive records in January and February, plummeted 60.0 percent to $3.08 billion.
The export decline was far from what economists had expected, with a survey by Bloomberg News projecting an increase of 9.0 percent. The poll forecast a trade surplus of $40.1 billion.
Customs spokesman Huang Songping blamed the export slump on stepped-up factory deliveries ahead of a later start for China's Lunar New Year holidays than in 2014.
Factoring in seasonal effects the fall was only 4.8 percent, Huang said. Still, he acknowledged problems.
"International market demand was slack and export orders have declined," he told reporters. "Comprehensive costs remained high so that the traditional competitive advantages were weakened."
For imports, he attributed the weakness to commodity price falls and a downturn in domestic growth.
In the first quarter overall prices of China's imports fell by 9.8 percent year-on-year, with those for key commodities iron ore, crude oil and refined oil dropping 45 percent, 46.8 percent and 38.7 percent respectively, according to Huang.
On Wednesday China announces economic growth data for the first quarter, with a survey by AFP forecasting 6.9 percent expansion. That would be sharply down from the 7.3 percent in October-December and the worst rate since January-February 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis.
Growth slowed to 7.4 percent in the whole of 2014, the weakest in 24 years. The deceleration appears to have continued into this year as indicators including industrial production, consumer spending and fixed asset investment have slumped.
"While the very weak export data in March was affected by the front-loading effect owing to the Chinese New Year in February, the overall trade performance in Q1 remains quite weak," ANZ economists Liu Li-Gang and Zhou Hao wrote after the latest figures.
"In particular, the very weak import data suggest domestic demand has slowed further", they added.
AFP
