Imports plunge by 7.8% as China exports grow
ALBAWABA – China exports reached $295.4 billion in April, 2023, the General Administration of China Customs (GACC) in Beijing said on Tuesday, according to the Economic Times website, achieving a growth rate of 8.5 percent, compared to 14.8 percent in March.
The drop in export growth rates has created a trade surplus of nearly $90 billion, Bloomberg reported.
China’s export surplus added to the country’s March surplus of $88.2 billion, already building up since hitting an all-time high of $877.6 billion in 2022, a recent report by Reuters highlighted.
The accumulation of trade surplus played a key role in the decline of China’s imports by 7.8 percent, to $205 billion in April, 2023.
Historically, this is the highest annual trade surplus record documented in China since 1950, compared with $670.4 billion in 2021, during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Chinese trade also recently saw the national Chinese currency, Yuan, overtaking the United States (U.S.) Dollar in trade transactions for the first time.
Meanwhile, in the first four months of the year, 2023, China’s exports grew by 2.5 percent to $1.12 trillion, compared to the same duration in 2022, as reported by the Economic Times.
Exports to the U.S. were down 6.5 percent to $43 billion compared with the same period last year, and imports also fell 2.9 percent to $13.3 billion.
Chinese exports to the European Union also shrunk by 17.7 percent in April, compared to the same period in 2022, down to $44.7 billion.
Imports from the U.S. and European Union also fell 2.9 percent and 38.6 percent, respectively, to a combined total of $36.7 billion in April.
