China Focus: China’s foreign trade fell 7.3% in first 7 months of 2015 – Xinhua

<> BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) – China’s foreign trade fell 7.3 percent year on year to 13.63 trillion yuan (2.23 trillion US dollars) in the first seven months of 2015, official figures show today.

Exports decreased slightly by 0.9 percent from a previous 7.75 trillion yuan a year, while imports fell 14.6 percent to 5.88 trillion yuan, according to data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

The trade surplus doubled to reach 1.87 trillion yuan in the January- July.

In July, foreign trade decreased by 8.8 percent compared to the same period of the past year 2.12 billions yuan, and exports declined 8.9 percent to 1.19 trillion yuan and imports fell 8.6 percent to 930,200 million yuan, the data said.

The trade surplus in July fell by 10 percent to 263.000 billion yuan.

Qu Hongbin, HSBC’s chief economist, attributed the decline in export growth mainly to a weak external demand, especially exports to the European Union (EU) and Japan.

trade with the EU, the largest trading partner of China, fell 7.6 percent year on year in the first seven months of the year to 1.98 trillion yuan, with exports falling 4.4 percent to 1.22 trillion yuan and imports 12.4 percent to 757 320 million yuan.

The fifth largest trade partner, Japan, fell 11.1 percent to 976 700 million yuan, with exports and imports both falling 11.1 percent to 471,060 and 505,640 yuan, respectively.