{"id":43775,"date":"2026-03-10T12:33:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=43775"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:33:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:48:01","slug":"china-starts-year-with-booming-trade-despite-us-exports-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/china-starts-year-with-booming-trade-despite-us-exports-drop\/","title":{"rendered":"China starts year with booming trade, despite US exports drop"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China’s trade surged by a fifth in the first two months of the year, official data showed Tuesday, significantly outpacing forecasts as a plunge in shipments to the United States was offset by sales to other major markets.<\/p>\n

The boost is a lifeline for the world’s second-largest economy as domestic consumer activity has slumped, and adds to the record surplus achieved last year.<\/p>\n

Official figures for the first two months of the year — usually combined to account for distortions arising from the varying Lunar New Year holiday — showed a strong start to 2026, before war broke out in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Exports climbed 21.8 percent year-on-year, the General Administration of Customs said, beating the 7.2 percent predicted in a Bloomberg survey of economists.<\/p>\n

“Exports are likely to remain robust given the recent decline in US tariffs and strong demand for semiconductors,” said Zichun Huang of Capital Economics.<\/p>\n

Many of China’s key trading partners have increasingly called on Beijing to reduce its soaring trade surplus owing to its impact on local competition.<\/p>\n

Globally, China saw significant increases in exports of products including automobiles, clothing and household appliances during the two-month period, the customs data showed.<\/p>\n

The reading comes as Chinese leaders gather for a closely watched annual political meeting, which last week saw the government announce its lowest economic growth target in decades.<\/p>\n

Among the challenges is a years-long slump in domestic spending, which has failed to recover since the end of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

But in a sign of rebounding activity, the latest figures showed imports soared 19.8 percent in January-February, smashing the seven percent estimated in the Bloomberg survey.<\/p>\n

– Oil imports surge –<\/strong><\/p>\n

The jump follows official data on Monday that revealed consumer prices rose last month at their fastest pace in three years.<\/p>\n

Exports to the United States sank 11.0 percent, however, as President Donald Trump pressed ahead with his tariff campaign.<\/p>\n

Beijing and Washington were locked in a blistering trade war last year — which at one point saw reciprocal levies in the triple digits.<\/p>\n

There are hopes that tensions could cool, with Trump set to travel to China at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Shipments to the United States totalled $67.24 billion in January-February, the figures showed, compared with $75.56 billion in the same period last year.<\/p>\n

That was offset, though, by exports to the European Union surging 27.8 percent, while those to ASEAN climbed 29.2 percent.<\/p>\n

However, “events in the Middle East will increase China’s oil import bill but weigh on its import volumes”, Huang said in a note.<\/p>\n

Worries about the global economy have intensified this month after the US-Israel war on Iran sent oil prices soaring to their highest since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The conflict has seen the crucial Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of global oil travels — effectively shut off.<\/p>\n

With tensions already rising last month, imports of oil by China — the world’s largest importer of the commodity — jumped 16 percent in January-February combined, the customs data showed Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The strong export growth will likely “reinforce” the argument of trading partners concerned about China’s ballooning trade imbalance, wrote Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist of Pinpoint Asset Management.<\/p>\n

Commerce minister Wang Wentao acknowledged that China’s trade needed balancing when he spoke at a news event Friday on the sidelines of the “Two Sessions” political meeting in Beijing.<\/p>\n

“Exports and imports are like the two wheels of a vehicle. If they are balanced, the vehicle runs smoothly and goes further,” Wang said.<\/p>\n

Pinpoint’s Zhang added that strong exports and a lower official growth target “suggest that China is unlikely to launch stimulus any time soon”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China’s trade surged by a fifth in the first two months of the year, official data showed Tuesday, significantly outpacing forecasts as a plunge in shipments to the United States was offset by sales to other major markets. The boost is a lifeline for the world’s second-largest economy as domestic consumer activity has slumped, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43777,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43775\/revisions\/43777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}