China reports sharpest drop in exports since 2020

BEIJING – China last month suffered its biggest fall in exports for more than three years, official data showed yesterday, as the world’s second-largest economy is battered by sluggish global demand and a domestic slowdown.

The data will likely ramp up calls for leaders to do more to revive growth, having laid out a series of stimulus measures in recent weeks focusing on consumers and the troubled property sector.

Sales of Chinese products to foreign markets sank 14.5 percent on-year last month, a third consecutive drop, according to the customs authority.

The decline was bigger than expected and the heaviest since a 17.2 percent plunge in January-February 2020, when the economy came to a standstill in the early weeks of the COVID pandemic.

Apart from a brief rebound in March and April, exports have been in constant decline since October.

The threat of recession in the United States and Europe, combined with high inflation, has contributed to weakening international demand for Chinese products in recent months.

Exports dived 12.4 percent on-year in June.

Shipments to the European Union in the first seven months of the year came to 2.08 trillion yuan ($288.9 billion), down 2.6 percent, the customs authority said in a separate statement on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, imports shrunk a forecast-busting 12.4 percent, a ninth straight month of contraction and further evidence that domestic demand has fallen off a cliff.

“China trade figures for July disappointed again,” Ken Cheung Kin Tai, an analyst at Mizuho Bank, wrote in a note.

“The weak trade figures highlighted the sluggish external demand, while (importers) refrained from purchasing goods for domestic production and investment,” Cheung said.