COVID-19 does its effect on China's export and import. (Image via Real Daily)

China’s exports slump amid COVID-19

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Market & Investment
Export Import
Mar 08, 2020
2916
For the first two months of 2020, China’s exports saw a significant decrease due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the land. Due to the raging epidemic, the businesses in China are forced to suspend operations from gadgets to automotive. As the second-largest economy in the world, it certainly disrupts the world’s supply chains.

Chinese exports fell to by 17.2 percent, the worst slump since February 2019 when going to a trade war with the United States (U.S), and its imports dropped by four percent according to data on Saturday. China’s trade surplus with the U.S narrowed by 40 percent in the first two months of 2020, from US$42 billion to US$25.4 billion.

The disruption made the world question China’s ability to fulfill its trade deal with the U.S where it was committed to boosting purchases of U.S goods and services by US$200 billion.

As China is struggling to contain the virus killing over 3,000 in China alone, people are told to stay indoors since the Lunar New Year break in late January and businesses extended their holiday.

China’s manufacturing activities also fell to its lowest level on record in February. Non-marketing activities also fell. As Chinese authorities said that the January and February data would be merged, it might not show the full detail of the recent COVID-19’s impact.

The data merger means the disruption was mostly concentrated in February, and the downturn was worse than expected. The Chinese authorities, however, said that the COVID-19’s impact would be short-lived as the government had rolled out support measures for the businesses to get back on track.

Source: https://bit.ly/39A6ZZ3

Economy , Finance , Market , Export-Import , Medical , Health , Disease , Pulmonary , Coronavirus , COVID-19 , Asia , China