First two months of 2020 more volatile than usual for China’s economic activity due to a week-long lunar new year holiday and the coronavirus epidemic
The holiday, as well as quarantine and containment measures, shut down much of the economy for weeks, disrupting travel, production and transport, and the economy is still struggling to return to pre-virus levels even as the government pushes companies to restart.
“China’s economic growth mainly relies on exports, real estate and infrastructure. The outlook of exports and the property market this year isn’t so optimistic, so China will likely ramp up infrastructure investment.”Imports of commodities rose, with purchase of soybeans up 14.2%, iron ore rising 1.5%, coal climbing 33.1% and liquefied natural gas increasing 2.8%. The overall trade balance fell to a deficit of $7.1bn for the first two months.
“The growth in imports from the US is pushed by the phase-one deal,” according to Zhou Hao, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Singapore. “The reason that imports were better than exports overall is that the main problems for China are on the production side.”
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