In terms of the United States dollar, China’s exports increased by 8.5% in April, marking the second consecutive month of growth, while the country’s imports decreased by 7.9% compared to the same time last year.
The consensus among the panel of economic experts surveyed by Reuters was that exports would increase by 8% in April, while imports were anticipated to stay constant. According to figures provided by the government, imports recorded a year-over-year decrease of 1.4% in March, while exports had an unexpected increase of 14.8%.
After reaching a surplus of $88.2 billion in March, China’s trade surplus increased to a new all-time high of $90.21 billion in April.
Economists at Goldman Sachs stated in a report released on Monday that weaker trade data in April is likely to reflect “residual seasonality” following the Lunar New Year celebrations that took place in 2019.
Economists from Goldman Sachs said earlier this month in a note that they were anticipating “the dissipation of this seasonal bias to slow export growth in April,” which is what they anticipated to see when they previewed China’s trade statistics.
Despite the poor industrial statistics, recent economic data issued from the world’s second-largest economy revealed that China’s service sector continued to be a bright light in the country’s overall economy.
The reading of the manufacturing purchasing manager’s index for the National Bureau of Statistics in April went into contraction territory with a reading of 49.2, compared to the reading of 51.9 in March. This result did not meet expectations and fell into contractionary territory.
“China is past the fastest stage of its reopening,” analysts from Goldman Sachs said in a separate report on Friday. It reaffirmed its prediction that China’s GDP would rise by 6% over the course of the whole year in 2023.
“Recent meetings with clients in the mainland suggest gradually fading pessimism on near-term growth, but some concern around deflationary pressures, though in our view this is not a major risk for 2023-24,” they wrote.
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