Chinese exports and imports likely to have grown in March, trade balance to remain steady in coming months

Chinese exports data of March is set to release tomorrow. According to a DBS Bank research report, exports are likely to have grown 5 percent year-on-year while imports are expected to have grown 1 percent. In the prior month, exports had dropped 20.8 percent and imports had fallen 5.2 percent.

Outward shipment performance should have recovered slightly because of trade war optimism. Import growth is also expected to have grown moderately in the midst a stabilizing domestic demand. Early indicators pointed towards a comparatively positive sentiment. NBS Manufacturing PMI returned to expansion zone for the first time since November 2018.

“Although both the new export orders and imports components of the PMI remained in contraction zone, the readings bounced back apparently to 47.1 and 48.7 in March from 45.2 and 44.8 respectively. Trade balance will likely remain steady in the months ahead”, added DBS Bank.

At 16:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Chinese yuan was highly bearish at -105.619 while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was slightly bullish at 110.012 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex