From January to February 2022, China's total import and export value was 973.45 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%. Among them, the export was 544.7 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 16.3% and 20.9% in December last year; Imports reached US $428.75 billion, up 15.5% year-on-year, compared with 19.5% in December last year; The trade surplus was US $115.95 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%, reaching US $94.46 billion in December last year.
The brief comments are as follows:
I. on the whole, the above data show that the import and export continued to operate at a high level at the beginning of the year. Among them, the export and import volume in the first two months reached a record high. In terms of growth rate, the year-on-year growth of exports and imports in the first two months continued to maintain double-digit growth, which was higher than the general expectation of the market. The trade surplus in the first two months also reached the highest level in the same period in history. Considering that exports will still maintain rapid growth in March, we estimate that the driving force of net exports on GDP in the first quarter will continue to remain at about 1 percentage point.
II. In terms of exports, China's year-on-year growth rate in December was 16.3% (13.6% in RMB), and the difference between the two was due to the appreciation of RMB in the same period. Due to the increase of the export base in the same period of last year, the growth rate decreased by 4.6 percentage points compared with that in December last year, and continued to maintain the trend of high growth. It can be seen that at the beginning of the year, China maintained double-digit growth to major export destinations such as the United States, the European Union, ASEAN, South Korea and Russia. At the beginning of the year, the continuous outbreak and tsunami abroad, the full repair of China's production capacity and the unabated overseas demand for "made in China" were an important supporting factor for the high growth of China's exports at the beginning of the year; In addition, at the beginning of the year, the high inflation outside China was on the whole intensifying, and the price of China's export commodities generally rose, which also pushed up the growth rate of export volume.
By analyzing the volume and price data of China's main export commodities, it can be seen that the prices of China's main export commodities at the beginning of the year increased significantly compared with the same period last year. As a result, the growth rate of export volume from January to February far exceeded that of export volume. Among them, in the first two months, the export volume of integrated circuits (chips) increased by only 0.5% year-on-year, but the export volume increased by 27.7%; Similar phenomena are also prominent in major export commodities such as shoes and boots, steel and mobile phones.
This means that the high growth of China's exports from January to February is mainly due to the sharp rise in the overall price of export commodities, which is confirmed by the recent high PPI and CPI in overseas markets and the high global prices.
While the export volume increased rapidly, the year-on-year growth rate of China's main export commodities from January to February changed little. In fact, this phenomenon has continued since the second half of last year. According to the latest data, China's export cargo volume in December 2021 was - 2.7% year-on-year, and five months in the second half of last year were in a state of negative year-on-year growth. We estimate that there is little possibility of positive year-on-year growth in export cargo volume from January to February this year. This explains why China's export volume has maintained a high growth recently, but the export new order index in the manufacturing PMI index continues to be in the contraction range, and the reason why the industrial added value has not improved with the strong export - the export new order index and industrial added value statistics are export quantity indicators. At the same time, it also means that although China's export volume increased significantly from January to February and the trade surplus hit a record high, its driving force on China's industrial production may still be relatively limited, and it is difficult to fundamentally alleviate the downward pressure on China's economy - the driving force of exports on economic growth should be measured by the number of exports rather than the amount of exports.
In terms of trade structure, from January to February, China's general trade export growth reached 20.1%, significantly faster than the overall export, accounting for 1.6 percentage points. General trade is a trade mode that truly reflects a country's foreign trade competitiveness. The rising proportion of general trade shows that the scientific and technological content of China's production and foreign trade competitiveness are improving, which means that the epidemic has accelerated the optimization and transformation of China's trade structure.
Looking forward to the future, the current high incidence of overseas epidemics will increase the difficulty of repairing overseas industrial chains, and China's exports will still be supported in the short term. However, the Russian Ukrainian war will generally bring the effect of "pushing up inflation and driving down growth" to the global economy. In addition, the overseas industrial chain will gradually recover this year, and China's export growth may decline rapidly after the second quarter. Therefore, focusing on stabilizing China's macroeconomic market, there will be more room for policy in the first half of the year, focusing on boosting infrastructure investment, promoting consumption repair and curbing the downward trend of real estate. Therefore, we judge that the fiscal policy will be launched at the beginning of the year. While highlighting the targeted support for small and micro enterprises, green development and scientific and technological innovation, the "big moves" such as comprehensive reserve requirement reduction and policy interest rate reduction are expected to be launched successively before the middle of the year.
III. in terms of import, the growth rate of import volume in the current month reached 19.5%, down 4 percentage points from the previous month, partly due to the increase of the base in the same period of last year, and the overall growth level continued to be high. According to our analysis, there are three supporting factors for the high increase in imports at the beginning of the year: first, at present, it is in the development period of infrastructure investment and manufacturing investment. The growth rate of imports of iron ore, copper ore and electromechanical equipment has improved to varying degrees compared with that in December last year. Second, the recent rise in international commodity prices, represented by crude oil prices, has also significantly pushed up the import amount at the beginning of the year. It can be seen that from January to February, China's crude oil import volume was - 4.9% year-on-year, but the import amount was 43.0% year-on-year. Third, processing trade still accounts for a large proportion of China's foreign trade, and the high growth of exports will inevitably drive the "rise of water and ships" of imports.
Looking forward to the future, under the background of China's increased steady growth and accelerated infrastructure investment, the import demand of bulk commodities is expected to expand. In addition, the Russian Ukrainian war is significantly pushing up international bulk commodity prices. In the short term, China's import volume will continue to maintain a double-digit growth year-on-year.
