Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Chinese trade myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
China’s exports edged higher in dollar terms last month as Beijing pinned its hopes on a manufacturing-led revival to boost flagging growth in the world’s second-biggest economy.
The value of China’s exports climbed 1.5 per cent in April from a year earlier, reversing an annual decline of 7.5 per cent in March, when lower prices battered Chinese producers. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a gain in export value of 1.5 per cent.
The value of China’s imports jumped 8.4 per cent in April, ahead of analysts’ expectations of growth of just below 5 per cent.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration is leaning on high-tech manufacturing to offset an economic decline stemming from lower property investment, weak consumer confidence and inefficient infrastructure spending.
China last month reported GDP growth of 5.3 per cent in the first quarter against a year earlier, beating analysts’ expectations despite rising geopolitical tensions over trade and industrial policy.
China’s government has set a GDP growth target of 5 per cent for 2024, the same figure as last year and the lowest in decades, which analysts have nonetheless described as an ambitious.
Many economists have called on Beijing to do more to boost consumer and investor confidence and encourage spending through direct stimulus measures and strengthening the welfare safety net.
While the government has stopped short of implementing sweeping stimulus, it has announced more support for factories, including a programme for industry to “upgrade” equipment and consumers to buy new appliances.
The value of China’s trade also expanded during the first quarter, with exports rising 1.5 per cent year on year in dollar terms and imports climbing 3.2 per cent over the same period.
Beijing has drawn accusations from the US and Europe of pursuing unfair trade practices that are creating supply far in excess of domestic demand, leading Chinese exporters to dump artificially cheap, subsidised goods on international markets.
In response, Chinese officials have become increasingly outspoken against western criticism of the country’s industrial policy.
Last month, Xi told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was visiting Beijing, that the country’s exports were helping ease global inflation and supporting the clean energy transition.
On Monday, he also told European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron that China did not have an overcapacity problem.
Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding in Beijing and William Sandlund in Hong Kong