credit goes to goggle


 

According to official data released on Friday, China's exports declined at their fastest rate since 2020 in December as a result of a decline in global demand and domestic economic activity being negatively impacted by health regulations.


The impacts of years of its zero-Covid policy, which wrecked firms and supply systems and slowed spending, are still being felt by the second-largest economy in the world.


At the beginning of last month, China started to relax most of its strict regulations, but since then, the number of Covid-19 infections has skyrocketed.


China Customs said that exports decreased 9.9% on a yearly basis to $30.6 billion, marking the second straight month of declines and the largest decline since the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. That came after a decrease of 8.7% in November.

Since 2020, when the global shutdown created a significant demand for Chinese commodities like medical items, exports have been the major engine of China's economy. This trend continued after the rest of the world resumed its normal operations.


The demand for imported goods is being impacted by both the Covid concerns and the slowing in China's economy.


After falling by 10.6 percent the month before, imports fell by 7.5 percent in December. According to a Bloomberg survey of economists, imports and exports both decreased far more than anticipated.


The Asian behemoth's exports increased 7.0 percent overall in 2022 as opposed to a 29.9 percent increase in 2021.

Imports increased by 1.1 percent in 2022 as opposed to a 30.1 percent increase in 2021, when China was still recuperating from the pandemic's initial wave.


Despite this, China's trade surplus in December was $78 billion, a significant decrease from the record-breaking $101.2 billion in July.


Tuesday will see the release of a number of other statistics, as well as China's economic growth estimate for 2022. The gross domestic product increased by more than 8% in the preceding year.


Beijing had set a growth goal of roughly 5.5 percent for 2022, but the restrictive zero-Covid health policy that was in effect for the majority of the year has weakened that goal.

"For the entire year of 2023, the negative global economic climate could be a huge downside risk to the Chinese economy," said Larry Hu, an analyst for the investment firm Macquarie.


And in a report, Zhiwei Zhang of Pinpoint Asset Management stated: "Both the wave of Covid outbreak and the falling worldwide demand likely contributed to this decline.


The economy's main driver in 2023 will be increased domestic demand, which is highlighted by the sluggish export growth.