China's full-year exports forecast to drop again

China's full-year exports are likely to see a bigger drop than in 2015 due to downward economic pressures, according to a senior analyst at a government think tank.

"Besides weak external demand, the country is suffering a hard time," Long Guoqiang, deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said in Beijing on Aug 19.

He indicates that traditional advantages enjoyed in previous years, such as relatively low-cost, labor-intensive manufacturing, were losing traction in a weaker global economy, while emerging advantages from expansion of China's high-tech sector are still evolving.

"Export growth will remain slow in the coming years," Long says.

China's exports dropped 1.8 percent last year to 14.14 trillion yuan ($2.12 trillion; 1.88 trillion euros), while imports plunged 13.2 percent to 10.45 trillion yuan, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.

That was the first time China saw declines in both exports and imports since 2009. In the first seven months of the year, exports were down 1.6 percent and imports decreased 4.8 percent.

Analysts say seasonal trends, as shown in the customs data, indicate that total yearly exports will drop even further during the rest of the year.

In the January-July period, foreign trade was 3 percent lower than a year earlier.

However, Long says the structure of China's foreign trade was getting better and the long-term outlook is promising. He says the development of new business formats such as cross-border e-commerce and buying from international markets, as well as the increasing number of exports with independent intellectual property rights, all showed structural upgrades.

Zhang Ji, assistant minister of commerce, says China still retains its global leading position on trade in goods, with a rise in the global market share of its exports from 11.2 percent in 2013 to 13.8 percent in 2015.

"After three decades of high-speed growth, we should treat the issue more objectively and rationally," he says.

duxiaoying@chinadaily.com.cn