Overseas shipments increased 0.9 percent from a year earlier, when figures were inflated by fraudulent invoicing, data from the Beijing-based customs administration showed Thursday. That compared with the median estimate for a 3 percent drop in a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. Imports gained 0.8 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $18.46 billion.
Improving global and domestic demand would reduce chances that Communist Party leaders resort to broad-based monetary easing or larger-scale stimulus than railway spending and tax breaks, after first-quarter growth slowed to the weakest pace in six periods. Officials are trying to rein in credit, pollution and property prices while targeting annual expansion of about 7.5 percent this year.
“Growth will probably stabilize in the second half as credit conditions get better, and external demand will further improve,” Ding Shuang, senior China economist at Citigroup Inc. in Hong Kong, said before Thursday’s release. “Export and import growth will boost economic growth.”
Data distortions
China’s trade data has been distorted this year after figures in early 2013 were inflated by falsified invoices used to disguise capital flows, triggering a government crackdown on the practice. April may mark the final month of the distortions and May data will compare with what Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc economist Louis Kuijs says were “pretty clean” numbers in the same period last year.
April exports have shown “obvious improvement,” Zheng Yuesheng, spokesman for the customs administration, said on state television Thursday. “The external environment for China’s foreign trade is improving,” Zheng said. “The effects of an inflated comparison base in the same period last year are weakening.”
Exports fell 6.6 percent in March from a year earlier and plunged 18.1 percent in February, the biggest drop since the global financial crisis, based on previously released data. Estimates for April from 47 economists ranged from a drop of 7.5 percent to an increase of 3.6 percent.
Imports estimate
Imports compared with a median estimate for a 2.1 percent decline from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, with forecasts ranging from a drop of 11 percent to an increase of 5.8 percent. The trade surplus was projected to be $16.7 billion.
China will implement measures to stabilize the country’s “severe and complicated” foreign-trade situation, the cabinet said last week. The government will accelerate the development of cross-border e-commerce, streamline trade processes, reduce the types of merchandise that require inspection and improve trade financing, according to a State Council statement.
Policymakers’ efforts to rein in credit, pollution and property prices are projected to help push down annual expansion to a 24-year low. The economy will grow 7.3 percent this year, according to the median estimate of 57 analysts surveyed in April.