China’s exports rose in December, capping a year of stronger trade growth buoyed by a robust global economy. Key Points
  • Exports rose 10.9 percent in dollar terms in December, the customs administration said Friday
  • That compares with a forecast of 10.8 percent in a Bloomberg survey
  • Import growth slowed to 4.5 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $54.69 billion
  • Full year data for 2017 show exports rose 10.8 percent in yuan terms while imports surged 18.7 percent. The 2017 trade surplus stood at 2.87 trillion yuan ($442.3 billion)
  • China’s trade surplus with the U.S. rose 13 percent in 2017
Big Picture Demand for Chinese products is holding up as growth in major trade partners remains intact, and a feared trade war between China and the U.S. has yet to materialize. An imports boom is being driven by the economy’s unexpectedly robust expansion in 2017, with the nation’s gross domestic product expanding by about 6.9 percent last year, the official Xinhua News Agency cited Premier Li Keqiang as saying this week. Economist Takeaways “China’s exports may continue to benefit from global recovery this year,” said Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Plc in Hong Kong. “A major uncertainty is potential China-U.S. trade frictions.” “Import growth outpaced that of exports significantly for the whole year of 2017, indicating that China’s growth profile has been experiencing a transition as domestic demand has been picking up,” said Zhou Hao, a senior emerging markets economist at Commerzbank AG in Singapore. “China is on its way to rebalancing its growth model and it makes sense to accelerate the deleveraging process as growth looks fine over the foreseeable future.” A better-than-expected global recovery supported China’s trade last year while commodity prices helped bolster imports, customs administration spokesman Huang Songping said at a briefing in Beijing on Friday. The trade outlook for this year is upbeat, Huang said. The Details
  • China surpassed the U.S. as the largest importer of oil last year as new refining capacity and independent buyers boosted demand
  • China’s 2017 soybean imports rose 13.9 percent to an annual record