China’s total trade has slumped in the first half of this year, in blow to the global economy from the world’s biggest trader in goods.
Two-way trade for the first six months of the year fell 6.9 per cent to 11.53 trillion yuan ($A2.49 trillion), official government data showed on Monday.
China is the world’s second-largest economy and a key driver of global growth, with an outsized impact in resource-rich supplier countries such as Australia.
Monday’s result was far below Beijing’s official target for the year of “about” 6.0 per cent growth.
That figure was a reduction from the 7.5 per cent goal set for 2014 – when trade values expanded only 3.4 per cent.
“Commodity prices fell significantly, dragging down growth in import value,” a Chinese customs spokesman Huang Songping told reporters.
“Export costs remained high, undermining export competitiveness,” he said, adding the yuan had strengthened against the dollar, euro and yen since the start of the year.
“The downward pressures on the domestic economy increased and the demand for imports was weak.”
For June, China’s imports fell for the eighth consecutive month, dropping 6.7 per cent year-on-year to 890.67 billion yuan ($A192.60 billion).
But exports increased 2.1 per cent to 1.17 trillion yuan ($A252.51 billion) on-year – snapping a run of three monthly declines in a row – and the country’s trade surplus leaped 45 per cent to 284.2 billion yuan ($A61.33 billion).
Chinese stock markets have been in turmoil in recent weeks, but the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.49 per cent in late morning trade, maintaining a positive tone after the figures were released.
The latest report comes as Chinese authorities manage what they describe as a “new normal” economy, in which they steer it away from a traditional model of high growth based on big investment projects and towards one where consumer demand takes prominence.
China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 7.4 per cent in 2014, the lowest rate in nearly a quarter of a century, and signs of further weakness have mounted this year.
GDP expanded 7.0 per cent in the January-March period, the worst quarterly result in six years, while economists predict it could fall to 6.9 per cent when China announces its second-quarter GDP figures on Wednesday.
