China February trade surplus surprises sharply to the upside

Amid ongoing trade tensions globally, the latest international trade figures out of the People's Republic of China surprised sharply to the upside on Thursday.

The Asian juggernaut's exports accelerated sharply in February, with the pace of growth picking up from a 11.1% clip year-on-year in January to 44.5% for last month, according to customs data.

Import growth on the other hand slowed down, from a 36.8% pace year-on-year to 6.3%.

To take note of, the country's bilateral trade surplus with the US increased from $20.3bn for January to $33.7bn in February.

Commenting on the data, Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics said shifts in the timing of the Lunar New Year holidays might have distorted the headline rates of growth.

Thus, it was better to average out the data for the first two months in order to eliminate such distortions, which in this case revealed that imports had slowed versus a year ago.

Evans-Pritchard added: "The bigger picture is that while China's trade surplus with most of the world has declined during the past year thanks to the stronger Chinese demand for commodities, its surplus with the US has continued to expand."

Nonetheless, sales to the US accounted for less than a fifth of its total exports and China was now less reliant on foreign demand than it used to be, he said, pointing to quicker growth in domestic demand than exports in recent years.