BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s export growth probably slowed in October, as overseas orders tapered off following months of front-loading to beat U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and as buyers watched to see how a volatile month in U.S.-China trade ties would develop.
Traders and investors on both sides of the Pacific breathed a sigh of relief last week after Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, easing concerns the world’s two largest economies might abandon talks to resolve a tariff war after a renewed spike in tensions in early October.
The U.S. once bought more than $400 billion of Chinese goods each year – sales that manufacturers have struggled to replicate elsewhere despite concerted efforts to tap new markets in Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East as the trade war roiled global supply chains.
Economists estimate the loss of the U.S. market has cut China’s export growth by around 2 percentage points, or roughly 0.3% of GDP.
October’s shipments were expected to have risen by 3.0% by value year-on-year, according to the median forecast of 34 economists in a Reuters poll, slowing sharply from an unexpected 8.3% surge in September.
The figure will be affected by a high base, after exports grew at their fastest pace in more than two years in October 2024 as factories began rushing inventory to major markets in anticipation of Trump winning the U.S. election and returning to the White House.
Imports probably grew 3.2%, compared with a 7.4% gain in September, as a prolonged property slump and uncertain job prospects continued to weigh on consumer demand, despite repeated government pledges to stimulate spending.
The official data from China’s customs administration will be released on Friday at 11 a.m. (0300 GMT).
Separate manufacturing activity data for October suggested the wider world had taken in all the Chinese goods it could for now, with factory owners reporting a significant drop in new export orders.
Economists appeared divided over whether the prospect of Trump and Xi striking a deal would spur shipments, after Beijing and Washington imposed sweeping export curbs and threatened triple-digit levies earlier in the month.
Singapore’s DBS returned the highest forecast of 8.8%, while Barclays and Deutsche Bank expect exports to have risen by 5.0%. Citigroup and Morgan Stanley both anticipate a 3.5% increase, with Standard Chartered offering up the lowest estimate of 0.0%.
In the end, Trump and Xi agreed a range of measures including tariff reductions, with China pausing its rare earth export controls for a year and the U.S. doing the same with its expanded Commerce Department blacklist of companies banned from buying U.S. technology goods. China also committed to buying more U.S. soybeans and working with Washington to combat fentanyl trafficking.
China’s October trade surplus is forecast to rise to $95.60 billion, up from $90.45 billion in September but well below the monthly average of $113 billion recorded so far this year.
(Reporting by Xiuhao Chen and Joe Cash; Polling by Vijayalakshmi Srinivasan in Bengaluru and Jing Wang in Shanghai; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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