China’s exports rose much less than expected last month, curbing a trade rebound that has been a bright spot for the slowing economy.
Exports climbed just 2.4 percent in US dollar terms from a year earlier, while imports inched up 0.3 percent, the Chinese General Administration of Customs said yesterday. That left a trade surplus of US$81.71 billion for the month.
Economists had forecast that exports would rise 6 percent, while imports would expand 0.8 percent.
Photo: Qilai Shen, Bloomberg
Chinese exports have been a rare source of strong growth for the economy this year, with the total value of shipments through last month the second-highest on record. However, imports have not grown as fast due to the slowdown in domestic growth, causing a record trade surplus and prompting more countries to raise barriers to Chinese goods.
Beijing has sought to bolster growth with a slew of stimulus measures, which could lift demand for imports and put pressure on prices to rise. The domestic economy has been in deflation since the second quarter of last year, which has pushed down export prices.
China has relied on manufacturing and exports to propel growth as the property sector slump hit consumer sentiment, with officials last week announcing plans for a significant fiscal stimulus package.
The country would issue special bonds to bolster banks, signaling an impending spending spree to shore up the property market and ease local government debt, Chinese Minister of Finance Lan Foan (藍佛安) said on Saturday.
China’s top banks on Saturday also said they would lower interest rates on existing mortgages from Friday next week.
“After accounting for changes in export prices and for seasonality, we estimate that export volumes softened a touch,” Capital Economics economist Zichun Huang (黃子春) said in a note yesterday.
“We think shipments will stay strong in the near term, supported by gains in export competitiveness. Further ahead, though, growing trade barriers are likely to become an increasing constraint,” Huang wrote.
Additional reporting by AFP
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS