China's export is expected to return to positive growth in 2017
Mar 24, 2017 ｜ by Shirley
Affected by the depreciation of the RMB exchange rate, the RMB denominated trade growth was significantly higher than the dollar-denominated trade. The export growth and import growth of December, 2016, denominated in RMB, were 0.6% and 10.8% respectively, with continuous positive growth.
Dollar-denominated export growth has declined, but real trade conditions have been improved
Export growth as a whole showed a rebound trend, during which the RMB denominated exports enjoyed a two consecutive months of positive growth, and the real export excluding the impact of exchange rate fluctuation has been gradually improved. The export growth was -6.1% in December, 2016, lower than that of November. The low export was in the first quarter of 2016, then to rebound quarter by quarter.
Due to the continued depreciation of the RMB against the U.S. dollar, the dollar-denominated export growth was significantly lower than the growth rate of RMB denominated. In December 2016, the RMB denominated exports grew by 0.6%, with 2-month positive growth. The annual export growth was -2%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from a year earlier. In international trade, some products were not settled in US dollars, so the appreciation of dollar made this part of trade shrink, if the trade was converted into the price of US dollar, which indicating that the real export situation was gradually improved, regardless of the impact of exchange rate fluctuation.
The differentiation of export growth of main export regions has increased, and the exports to the United States and part of emerging market economies are better. The external environment has been overall improved, and the Baltic Dry Index rose to more than 1200 points in November, but it declined recently.
The exports of some labor-intensive products and crude oil products has increased rapidly. There is differentiation of labor-intensive products, that the export growth of toy products in December was up to 65.6%, keeping the double-digit growth for four consecutive months, while the exports of textiles, bags, clothing and furniture suffered negative growth. Driven by the rise of international crude oil prices, both the exports of crude oil and refined oil were accelerating, with the growth rate of up to 91.6% and 24.4% respectively in December 2016. It was worth noting that high-tech products and mechanical and electrical products continued to maintain negative growth, and the structure of export products needed to be optimized.
Various factors contributed to the sustainable growth of imports
The imports of December, 2016, amounted to 168.599 billion dollar, a year-on-year increase of 3.1%, keeping a two-month consecutive positive growth. The import growth denominated by RMB was 10.8%, a 5-month consecutive positive growth. Due to rapid growth in import, the trade surplus was 40.818 billion dollar, 3.4 billion dollar lower than the previous month.The better import growth mainly benefited from rebound in prices, stabilized demand and so on.
The rising import price has played a role in promoting the imports. Recently, the price index of international commodity rose to over 430 points; the price index of agriculture and food was more moderate, among which the price indexes of food, oil and livestock were 343.55, 408.86 and 452.2 points respectively in late December 2016. The price indexes of metal and industrial raw materials increased to 807.49 points and 493.67 points. The price index of textile basically maintained stable. With the gradual rise in commodity prices, the import price index gradually picked up, especially the significant rise in the price of primary products.
The export growth are expected to be positive in 2017
The global economy is in a slow recovery process, during which international trade market has been improved and the exports of neighboring countries in Asia have increased significantly. The 2017 policy will shift from stabilizing export growth to promoting the upgrading of export structure, which includes gradient transfer of export industry from eastern area to middle and western areas, as well as the upgrading of export products. In recent years, the RMB exchange rate significantly devalued, and the central parity rate of RMB against dollar has decreased by around 13% from the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2016, whose stimulating effects to export of 2017 will gradually emerge. Also, the depreciation of exchange rate led to the RMB denominated export growth higher than dollar-denominated one. Although there are much uncertainty of external environment and serious trade protectionism, as well as Trump's new deal to increase trade sanctions, the main indexes related with export are ascendant. From the above, the positive factors of exports has appeared, so China’s export growth is expected to be positive, and end the situation of two-year consecutive negative growth.
