MADRID, 13 (EUROPA PRESS)
Chinese exports added a total of 315,590 million dollars (288,044 million euros) last March, which represents an interannual increase of 14.8%, after the contraction of 6.8% in the combined figure for January and February, in what represents the first increase in the Asian giant’s sales abroad since last September, according to information in dollars from the General Administration of Customs of China.
On the other hand, imports from China added a total value of 227,400 million dollars (207,552 million euros) in March, a figure that represents a drop of 1.4% compared to the same month in 2022.
In general, the volume of China’s trade in the month of March reached a value of 542,990 million dollars (495,596 million euros), 7.4% above that registered in March 2022.
In the month of March, the Asian giant increased its exports to the European Union by 0.3%, up to 313,750 million dollars (286,365 million euros), and imports by 5.2%, up to 172,660 million dollars (157,590 millions of euros).
In the case of the United States, Chinese exports decreased by 10.4%, to 297,760 million dollars (271,770 million euros) and imports rose 6.2%, to 109,820 million dollars (100,234 million euros).
On the contrary, sales from China to its Russian neighbor increased by 59.3% annually in March, to 62,260 million dollars (56,820 million euros), while imports from Russia increased by 43.3%, to 75,540 million. dollars (68,947 million euros).
“China’s exports unexpectedly increased last month. But we are not convinced that this rebound will be sustained given the still gloomy outlook for external demand,” warns Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, for whom the scale of the increase suggests that not only did conditions improve the supply chain, but foreign demand also picked up.
However, the expert warns that this rebound “may soon give way to a new contraction”, since the delayed impact of rate hikes in developed economies has not yet been fully felt and the tightening of credit conditions after the recent banking turmoil adds to the short-term hurdles.
“We expect most developed economies to enter recession this year and we believe that the fall in Chinese exports still has some way to go before bottoming out later this year,” he notes, while the end of the zero-zero policy Covid and the construction rebound should fuel a further increase in Chinese imports in the coming months.
