By Gina Lee
Investing.com – China presented a mixed picture of its economic recovery from the COVID-19 virus in its trade data released on Sunday.
Exports in May contracted 3.3% year-on-year according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, against analyst forecasts prepared by Investing.com predicting a fall of 7%. April exports contracted by 3.5%.
Imports shrank 16.7% year-on-year, a much larger fall from the predicted 9.7% fall as well as April’s figure of –14.2%.
Meanwhile, China's trade balance was $62.93 billion, compared to analyst forecasts of $39 billion and the $45.33 billion figure in April.
The data suggested that although the domestic recovery continues, with the economic engine restarted in April after months of lockdown, the global recovery is taking longer to catch up.
Countries are slowly starting to restart economic activity after loosening their own lockdowns, but countries such as South Korea are dealing with new outbreak clusters, prompting fears of a second wave of infections.
There are now over 7 million cases of COVID-19 globally as of June 8, and over 400,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.