China’s imports in RMB terms fell 14.3% in August compared to a year before, sharpening from an 8.6% fall in July, while exports last month dropped only 6.1% after a tumble of 8.9% the month prior, The Financial Times reported. (In dollar terms, exports fell 5.5% while imports were down 13.8%.) Decelerating imports helped boost the the country’s trade surplus by almost 40% from July to RMB638 billion, nearly even with the RMB370 billion record set in February. “The slowing domestic economy has cut imports,” Moody’s Analytics wrote before the data was released, “although there are tentative signs of improvement in volumes of commodity imports, indicating that monetary easing is starting to help real investment.”
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