China: another drop for export

China's September exports fell 10% to $184.5 billion from a year earlier, far worse than expected, the steepest annual decline since January, after a reasonable performance in August. In local currency terms, exports were down 5.6% while imports were up 2.2%.
Exports fell across all markets, with an 8.1% decline in exports to the US, while exports to Europe dropped by almost 10%. Imports fell 1.9% to $142.5 billion, also down from a 1.5% rise in August; economists expected imports to rise 1%.

The export sector had expected to improve following a promising manufacturing survey and signs of a recovery in Asia's electronics supply chain.

The spokesman for China's General Administration of Customs, Huang Songping told reporters in Beijing that the country's challenges were "not short-term." But he admitted that companies' traditional trade competitiveness was "weakening."
China is currently in a difficult process of restructuring its economic model to make the spending power of its nearly 1.4 billion people a key driver for growth, instead of relying on massive government investment and cheap exports.

Capital Economics China economist Julian Evans-Pritchard said sluggish global demand was to blame for the weaker-than-expected export performance. “This could be an early sign that the recent recovery in economic activity is losing momentum,” he wrote, without mentioning a single data point.

"This comes on the heels of weak South Korean trade data, and it definitely make us worry about to what extent global demand is improving," said Luis Kujis, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong.