China’s Exports Drop 3.7%, Imports Fell 5.6% In November

The trade figures compare with a Reuters’ analyst poll of a decline of 5.0 percent for exports and a fall of 12.6 percent for exports.

The administration earlier released the figures in yuan.

Chinese imports and exports both fell again in November, authorities said Tuesday, the latest ambivalent figures from the world’s second-largest economy.

“If we had continued to see imports collapsing there was an increased risk of a Chinese hard landing”, said ANZ’s chief China economist Liu Li-gang.

“External demand is still weak with so many uncertainties in November in the USA and Europe, but imports were a little better than expected”, said BBVA Research economist Xia Le.

In yuan denominated terms, exports showed an annual fall of 3.7% and imports shrank 5.6% in November.

By value, China’s imports from the United States, the European Union and Japan all dropped, and in the case of Australia by a double-digit rate.

China has seen its once-vaunted export machine lose momentum in the face of rising labor costs, industrial overcapacity-which tends to spur price competition-and weak global demand.

The Shanghai Composite Index was 1.3 percent lower as of 11:48 a.m. local time and the yuan weakened.

While this process is underway in China, the central government has pledged to support growth via infrastructure projects during the transition.

President Xi Jingping said in November the country’s economic growth rate will not be less than 6.5 percent in the five years to 2020.

Activity across China’s manufacturing sector tanked last month.

“There are signs that recent policy easing may have resulted in an improvement in current conditions”, Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist at Capital Economics Ltd., wrote in a report.

But that would still mark China’s weakest economic expansion in a quarter of a century, and some analysts believe real growth levels are much weaker than official data suggest.