China Trade Unveiled - ANZ
Analysts at ANZ noted that the trade balance for China and April was $45.6 billion, which was better than expectations.
Key Quotes:
"However,
this was mainly due to weaker imports and the continued depreciation in
the yuan. Local export returns rose 4.1% y/y in April and year-to-date
are back only 2%. This might not seem too awful, but with the yuan back
4.5% this year it highlights an even softer global demand backdrop.
Imports also fell 5.7% y/y in local terms in April.
The first four months saw imports of commodities rising in volume but not in
value.
According to Customs, China bought 325m tons of iron ores (+6.1% y/y),
124m tons of crude (+11.8%) and 1.88m tonnes of copper (+23.1%) but
their import prices fell 24.9%, 35.3% and 16.2% respectively.
Imports
of coal dropped 2.5% and 21.5% in volume and average price
respectively. Unless these prices surge sharply in the near term, the
value of China's imports is unlikely to pick up. All up, April's trade
data is unlikely to have a major impact on the PBoC’s exchange rate
policy as the government attributes the sluggish trade figures to the
weakness of global demand."
