China Winning: Exports hit record high amid pandemic

China was already outperforming every other major world economy last year as the coronavirus pandemic upended the globe.Hong Kong (CNN Business)

China’s overall surplus for the year hit a record $535 billion, up 27% from 2019.

Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, attributed China’s gains largely to the country’s management of the pandemic, which broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan just over a year ago.

“After having recovered from its own Covid-19 crisis, China was open for business when the pandemic triggered huge demand in the US (and other countries) for Covid-19 related goods,” Kuijs said.

China’s trade relationship with the United States, meanwhile, became even more imbalanced: Beijing’s trade surplus with Washington rose to $317 billion in 2020, a 7% increase from the year prior and the second highest amount on record, according to Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING.

“Judged by the surge of US imports from China in 2020, it seems fair to say that Trump’s trade war with the country failed,” Kuijs said.

The good trade news comes days before China is expected to announce GDP figures for the end of 2020 — another likely positive showing.

Analysts widely expect that China’s economic growth will pick up even more during the last three months of the year.