China’s overseas shipments posted a decline on seasonal effects around the Chinese New Year holiday.
Exports fell 2.7 percent in March after a 44.5 percent gain the previous month, the customs administration said Friday, compared with a projected 11.8 percent increase in Bloomberg’s survey of economists. Imports increased 14.4 percent, leaving a surprise trade deficit of $4.98 billion, the first since February 2017.
Trade disputes have escalated in recent weeks as President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on some $150 billion of imports from China, and Beijing announced potential retaliation on U.S. goods including soybeans and airliners. Data due Tuesday are projected to show that the economic expansion remained intact in the first quarter, though long-term tensions may dim the outlook.
“We hope both China and the U.S. can solve the disputes with wisdom and respect, in a constrictive way,” Huang Songping, a spokesman for the customs administration, said Friday at a briefing in Beijing. “We hope trade relations can return to the track of healthy and stable development.”
First quarter data are strongly affected by the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which fell in February this year, as well as currency effects. The yuan increased 3.7 percent in the first three months for the biggest gain in a decade.
