China’s exports surprisingly declined by 3.2% in January 2015, compared with a growth of 9.9% in the prior month. Imports also dropped sharply by 19.7%, versus a 2.3% decline in the previous month, according to data released by China’s General Administration of Customs.
As imports continued to under-perform, China registered another record high monthly trade surplus, at US$60 billion, compared with a trade surplus of US$49.1 billion in December.
"We believe that external demand and underlying export growth stayed largely firm, and imports remained anemic but did not collapse," writes a research report issued by UBS AG. "We maintain our 2015 forecasts of trade at 7.5% export growth and 3% import growth, as well as (an exchange rate of) 6.35RMB per U.S. dollar by the end of 2015."
"Official data suggest that China’s external debt has exceeded US$1 trillion by the end of 2014, with 80% of which is in short tenor of less than one year. Indeed, today’s poor trade data could add depreciation pressures on the RMB exchange rate," says a research report by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ).
