China's merchandise export and import growth slowed to 17.1% yoy and 20.9% yoy in September respectively, 3-4ppts below market consensus estimates. On exports, the September growth rate represents a decline by 7ppts from August, and is the lowest since November 2009 (excluding the Chinese new year periods). This deceleration is broadly consistent with our expectation, and we believe further deceleration of export growth will be inevitable in the coming months and quarters.

By country, the growth of exports to the EU slowed dramatically to 9.7%yoy in Sep from 22.3% in Aug. Exports to other destinations held up relatively well (15% yoy for exports to the US and over 20% to most Asian countries). By product, the deceleration is most obvious on imports of raw materials (copper, raw plastics, and crude oil) and exports of machinery and processed metals. The low-end exports such as apparels, shoes, bags and mobile phones still maintained growth rates of 25-35%.

We expect the slowdown to spread to exports to other destinations and other product categories in the coming months. By the end of this year, China's export growth will likely decelerate to around 10% yoy (from the current 17%), as implied by the weak China PMI new export orders index as well as sluggish European and US leading indicators.

 

• [Editor:editor]