16 Feb 2016
China: Trade slump suggests investment weakened – Nomura
Research Team at Nomura, notes that Chinese export growth in USD terms fell to -11.2% y-o-y in January from -1.4% in December, much worse than expected (Consensus: -1.8%; Nomura: -2.5%).
Key Quotes
“This was consistent with weakening Korean export growth and suggests a deterioration in external demand. Import growth in USD terms slumped to -18.8% y-o-y from -7.6% in December, against expectations of an improvement (Consensus: -3.6%; Nomura: -4.0%).
Retail sales during the long lunar new year holiday increased by 11.2% from last year, which suggests consumption growth remains stable. Therefore, we believe the slump in trade growth mainly reflects weakening investment demand, possibly from weaker property investment and measures to reduce overcapacity. In sum, thanks to the particularly weak imports, the trade surplus increased to USD63.3bn from USD60.1bn in December.
Overall, trade data, together with high-frequency data and leading indicators, suggest growth momentum weakened further in January."
Key Quotes
“This was consistent with weakening Korean export growth and suggests a deterioration in external demand. Import growth in USD terms slumped to -18.8% y-o-y from -7.6% in December, against expectations of an improvement (Consensus: -3.6%; Nomura: -4.0%).
Retail sales during the long lunar new year holiday increased by 11.2% from last year, which suggests consumption growth remains stable. Therefore, we believe the slump in trade growth mainly reflects weakening investment demand, possibly from weaker property investment and measures to reduce overcapacity. In sum, thanks to the particularly weak imports, the trade surplus increased to USD63.3bn from USD60.1bn in December.
Overall, trade data, together with high-frequency data and leading indicators, suggest growth momentum weakened further in January."