China’s exports surged to a record high last year, providing a much-needed boost for the economy as the prospect of biting tariffs imposed by US president-elect Donald Trump looms.
“In 2024, China’s total exports exceeded 25 trillion yuan [US$3.41 trillion] for the first time, reaching 25.45 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.1 percent year-on-year,” Chinese General Administration of Customs spokesman Lu Daliang (呂大良) told a news conference in Beijing yesterday.
Total imports rose 2.3 percent to 18.39 trillion yuan, Lu added.
Photo: AFP
Combined trade expanded 5 percent to reach a record 43.85 trillion yuan, customs Vice Minister Wang Lingjun (王令浚) said.
“China’s position as the world’s largest goods trading nation has become even more secure,” Wang added.
Official customs data showed that exports last month jumped 10.7 percent year-on-year, comfortably outperforming a forecast of 7.5 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
“We expect shipments to remain strong in the coming months, as US importers continue to stockpile Chinese goods ahead of tariff hikes,” Capital Economics Ltd economist Huang Zichun (黃子春) wrote in a note.
“But exports are likely to weaken later this year, as President Trump puts his tariff threats into action,” she added.
Imports last month grew 1 percent year-on-year, customs data showed, compared with a Bloomberg forecast of a 1 percent fall.
China’s exports “are likely to stay resilient in the near term,” Huang wrote.
“But outbound shipments will weaken later this year if Trump follows through,” she wrote, adding that the new US tariffs “could reduce export volumes by about three percent and shave roughly 0.5 percent off China’s GDP.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump threatened to slap a 60 percent tariff on all Chinese goods.
“With the help of strong exports and macro policy easing, the economic momentum likely stabilized,” Pinpoint Asset Management Ltd chief economist Zhang Zhiwei (張智威) wrote in a note yesterday following the publication of the trade figures.
The government is due to release last year’s economic growth data later this week. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Dec. 31 expressed confidence that the country would meet its official economic growth target for last year of about 5 percent.
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