BEIJING, December 7 (TMTPOST) -- China's November exports saw positive growth due to a low base from the same period in 2022. 

In terms of the U.S. dollar, China’s exports in November increased by 0.5% year-on-year, compared with a year-on-year 6.4% fall in October, marking the highest growth since May, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Thursday. However, imports in November declined by 0.6% year-on-year, compared with a year-on-year 3% increase in October. The trade surplus in November stood at $68.4 billion, a decrease of $11.87 billion.

As a result of a smaller depreciation of the yuan compared to the same period last year, the gap between import and export performance calculated in yuan and in USD has narrowed. In yuan terms, exports in November grew by 1.7% compared to the same period last year, while October recorded a YoY 3.1% decrease. This marked the first positive growth since May. Imports increased by YoY 0.6%, compared with a 5.2 year-on-year increase in October. Consequently, the trade surplus for the month was 490.82 billion yuan, an increase of 85.35 billion yuan from October.

Both export and import performances fell short of market expectations. According to a survey conducted by Caixin Media on 16 domestic and foreign institutions, economists had an average forecast of 0.9% for November's export growth, with a forecast range of -4.5% to 7.5%. For import growth, the average forecast was 3.6%, with a range of 0.9% to 6.5%, so the actual imports fell below the low end of the forecast range. The forecast for the trade surplus averaged $60.37 billion.

Given a low base in 2022, China's exports to major markets except the European Union showed varying degrees of growth. Specifically, exports to the United States shifted from a year-on-year decline of 8.2% to growth of 7.3%, marking the first positive growth since August 2022. Decline of exports to Japan and Southeast Asia narrowed by 4.7 and 8.0 percentage points to 8.3% and 7.1%, respectively. It is still significantly lower than the overall export growth rate. Export to Russia rebounded by 16.3 percentage points to 33.6%, reaching a new high in nearly four months. However, decline of exports to the EU was 14.5%, widened by 2 percentage points.

In terms of specific goods, due to the low base effect, the decline in exports of major labor-intensive products in November narrowed but remained below the overall level. Specifically, exports of textiles, bags, clothing, and footwear declined by 1.3%, 5.0%, 4.4%, and 20.0%, respectively, narrowing by 2.0 to 8.6 percentage points.

Compared to the same period in 2022, the decline in exports of mechanical and electrical products widened by 10.0 percentage points to 11.7%. With a lower base and the rebounding global technology cycle, the year-on-year export growth of mechanical and electrical products in November increased by 8.0 percentage points to 1.3%, marking the first positive growth since May. The YoY export growth of high-tech products also turned from a 9.2% decline to a 2.9% increase. Among them, exports of general mechanical equipment and integrated circuits increased by 1.5% and 12.0%, respectively, with the latter recording positive growth for the first time since July 2022. Exports of mobile phones and household appliances accelerated by 32.8 and 3.8 percentage points to 54.6% and 11.8%, respectively. However, exports of automobiles and chassis maintained double-digit growth to 27.9%.

Prices of major commodity recently have seen fluctuations, leading to differentiated import situations. Crude oil imports in November decreased by 9.2% year-on-year. Coupled with a larger decline in international crude oil prices, a greater year-on-year decrease in imports of 12.8% was resulted, all down by over 20 percentage point from the previous month. The import growth of iron ore slightly slowed to 3.9% year-on-year, but driven by rising prices, the growth rate of import value accelerated to 29.1% year-on-year. Import growth of soybean slowed to 7.7%, but the decreased price dragged imports down by 7.8% year-on-year.

Among mechanical and electrical goods, integrated circuit imports maintained positive growth for two consecutive months, but the growth rate slowed by 1.4 percentage points to 0.6% in November. Decline of imports for diodes and other semiconductor devices and liquid crystal display modules widened to 17.2% and 10.9%, respectively, lower than the previous figures by 12.7 and 1.9 percentage points. 

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