China trots thanks to anti-Covid exports
Despite the pandemic, China's economy is holding up thanks above all to the export of masks and PPE: exports +9.5 in August. All the details
China's economic recovery, in the post Covid, has two faces.
The first is the one that shows the Country of the Dragon slowing down after the lockdown , with a contraction in domestic consumption and a drop in imports of 2.1%. The second shows an almost double-digit growth in exports, driven precisely by orders for the supply of personal protective equipment and products for work from home.
All the details.
GROWING EXPORT
Let's start with the positive numbers. According to data provided by the Customs Agency, China's exports jumped 9.5% in August compared to the same month in 2019.
The figure is higher than analysts' expectations, which indicated an increase of 7.1% and also the good performance recorded in July 2020, with a plus 7.2%.
BOOM IN SUPPLIES OF HEALTHCARE DEVICES
The healthy and robust constitution of Chinese exports, says Lu Ting, chief economist of Nomura International at Il Sole 24 Ore , is "due to some particular factors", namely the boom in orders for personal protective equipment and products for work. from home.
An example among all: textile products, including masks, saw orders increase by 33.4% in the first eight months of 2020, on an annual basis.
THE DECREASE IN EXPORTS OF EMERGING COUNTRIES
And again, adds Lu Ting, the sector is affected by the decline in exports "from some competing emerging markets", still in full Covid emergency.
Vietnam, for example, saw its exports grow by just 1.6% in the first 8 months of the year, with GDP increasing by only 0.3% in the second quarter, due to the containment measures of the pandemic. , specifies the Sole 24 Ore .
THE ANALYSIS OF CHINA INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL
And without the boom in medical goods orders, the country's exports would have fallen by an average of 3.1% each month between March and July, according to China International Capital's analysis. Exports, on the other hand, increased by 0.3%.
IMPORTS FALL
What is worrying is the contraction in domestic consumption , which is less than 2.1% of imports, according to the National Customs Agency.
BANKRUPTCY XI JINPING STRATEGY?
Therefore, Xi Jinping's strategy is not working at the moment. The Chinese President, says Asia News , is working on the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), which will be adopted in October by the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, in which Xi focuses on a post lockdown economy that it is based mainly on domestic consumption and not that it grows only thanks to exports and (state) investments.
IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO RELY ON THE DOMESTIC MARKET ONLY?
Among those who criticize Xi Jinping's strategy is Teng Tai, director of the Wanb Institute in Beijing, who told the government Securities Times that Beijing cannot live by relying only on the domestic market to support its huge manufacturing system.
We “produce 10 billion hats, 10 billion pairs of shoes, 30 billion clothing items and 200 billion tablets and PCs every year. It is impossible to sell all of this within the country, ”Teng Tai said.
SURPLUS WITH THE USA
Returning to the numbers, China's trade surplus with the US, in August, was 34.24 billion dollars (+ 27% annually) from 32.46 billion in July. Numbers, according to the customs agency, due to exports jumped by 20% per year to 44.8 billion and imports increased by just 1.8% to 10.5 billion.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/la-cina-trotta-grazie-allexport-anti-covid/ on Tue, 08 Sep 2020 14:40:10 +0000.