A Chinese flag flies over a ship passing by unloaded shipping containers at a Tianjin Port Group Co. dock. from Tianjin, China.
Nelson Ching | Bloomberg | Getty Images
China on Tuesday reported March exports that did not meet analysts’ forecasts, while imports for the month rose more than expected.
Chinese exports last month rose 30.6% year-on-year in terms of US dollars, remaining at a 35.5% increase expected by analysts polled by Reuters. Meanwhile, the country’s imports in US dollars increased by 38.1% in March compared to a year ago, exceeding the 23.3% increase that these analysts had forecast.
Stronger-than-expected growth in imports reduced China’s trade surplus to $ 13.8 billion in March, much narrower than the Reuters poll’s forecast of $ 52.05 billion.
Paras Anand, Asia-Pacific investment director at Fidelity International, said the latest data show that China’s economic recovery is entering “a different phase.”
He told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” following the release that China’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has focused on production in recent months, as seen in strong export figures. But demand seems to be rising now, he added.
“As we move now to the recovery in China, reaching a more mature level, we are beginning to see that consumption is also growing very strongly,” Anand said.
China was the first country to report coronavirus cases in late 2019. Official data showed that the economy hit its depression in the first quarter of 2020, when the number of infections peaked.
The country seems to have largely contained the focus and became the only major economy to grow last year, when it expanded by 2.3%. China has set a growth target of more than 6% for 2021, while the International Monetary Fund expects the Asian giant to expand by 8.4% this year.