The uncertainties due to the trade war with the United States put the brakes on the Chinese foreign trade more than expected, the exports declined by 20 percent. Overall, China is a driving but still a trade surplus.
China’s exports fell in February, and surprisingly strong. As the customs authority announced on Friday that broke the Dollar-denominated exports by 20.7 percent. Analysts had expected a decline of 4.8 percent, after an unexpected increase of 9.1 percent in January. Imports also declined in February, surprising. The decline in the previous month, amounted to 5.2 per cent. Here, the experts estimate amounted to minus 1.4 per cent.
From the point of view of foreign Minister Wang Yi, the two largest economies in the world, however, have made “substantial progress” in their negotiations on an end to the trade conflict. Wang Yi saw in the talks, even “a good example for cooperation between China and the United States,” he said at a press conference on the occasion of the annual meeting of the national people’s Congress.
The summit is questionable
The negotiations are in the final stage, but difficult. “We still have to do a lot,” quoted the “New York Times”, Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan on the sidelines of the Parliament session. Some of the biggest problems are still open, were quoted informed circles. It is about how the United States ensure that China complies with the agreement, and when the penalty duties should be repealed.
Whether China’s state and party chief Xi Jinping after a visit to Europe at the end of March to Meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago to Florida next travels to seal an agreement, it appears with each passing day questionable. Without a breakthrough, such a trip should not be planned. Beijing fears the unpredictability of Trump, the falls themselves and, sometimes, surprisingly with the final decisions.
Whether it comes at the end of March to a handshake between the two leaders is more than questionable
The trade war led to China’s exports alone to the United States in the first two months in US dollars is calculated to fall by 9.9 percent compared to the same period last year, reported China’s customs. The imports from the USA decreased in January and February by 32.2 percent. The bottom line is that selling in China for 290 billion dollars more in Goods to the U.S. market than it imported. The trade surplus rose to 3.9 percent.
The whole of the trade of China with the world fell in two months by 3.9 percent compared to the same period last year. Exports declined by 4.6 percent, while imports recorded a decline of 3.1 percent. The trade surplus as a whole fell by 13.6 percent to 43 billion US dollars. Due to the long Chinese new year holiday, always celebrated at different times between January and February, the Figures easier to compare, if both months are considered.
zdh/bea (rtr, dpa)