China records first monthly trade deficit since February 2017
April 17, 2018 Category China News Round-up, Weekly
China’s March exports unexpectedly fell compared with a year earlier, leaving it with its first monthly trade deficit since February 2017, the country’s customs administration said. But the world’s largest exporter continued to report a large trade surplus with the U.S. last month, despite the looming threats of trade war from U.S. President Donald Trump. In the first quarter of this year, the bilateral trade surplus rose by 19.4% compared with a year earlier to USD58.25 billion, including USD15.3 billion in March alone.
China’s overseas shipments in March dropped slightly in U.S. dollar terms – falling by 2.7% last month compared with a year earlier – the General Administration of Customs said, a sharp reversal from a surge of 44.5% in February. Chinese imports increased by 14.4%, leaving China with a USD4.98 billion trade deficit for the month. For the first quarter, China still recorded a surplus.
Chinese exports to the U.S. grew 14.8% in the first quarter compared with the previous year but imports from the U.S. rose 8.9% year-on-year in the same period. The U.S.-China trade gap “hit a historical high” in the first quarter. Huang Songping, Spokesman for China’s customs administration, told a briefing in Beijing that the U.S. should not blame China for the surplus because it is a result of the economic structures in the two countries. “If you take into account other factors such as the service trade, the real trade surplus between China and the U.S. may not be as big as the numbers suggest,” Huang said.
Foreign direct investment in China rose steadily in March. In yuan terms, FDI in the country rose 0.4% year-on-year to CNY88.14 billion last month. The total FDI inflow in the year’s first quarter increased by 0.5% from a year earlier to CNY227.54 billion, which in U.S. dollar terms represented a growth of 2.1%. The number of new overseas-funded firms in the first three months in China surged 124.7% from a year earlier to 14,340, while the number in March was 5,492, up 117.7%. FDI in the high-tech industry jumped 12.8% from a year earlier and accounted for 19.3% of the total investment.
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