Chinese imports and exports jump past forecasts in June

Customs data revealed a sharp rise in the year-on-year rate of import growth from -16.7% for May to +2.7% last month (consensus: -8.8%).

According to Julian Evans-Pritchard and Martin Rasmussen at Capital Economics, a "surge" in demand for industrial commodities confirmed that the rise was the result of increased internal demand and not just price effects.

And fiscal stimulus should keep import demand strong, they added.

In month-on-month terms, purchases from overseas were 14.1% higher, marking the biggest increase since 2012.

On the export side of the equation, export growth rose from -3.3% to +0.5% in US dollar terms (consensus: -2.0%), despite a slowdown in sales overseas of products related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

That, Evans-Pritchard and Rasmussen said: "suggests that broader exports are starting to benefit from the easing of lockdowns abroad. In seasonally adjusted m/m terms, exports rose 2.3%."

Yet while shipments of masks, medical products, and work-from-home equipment were still soaring by more than 30% in annual terms, as they continued to slow "overall exports will start to contract again before long".