China Exports Unexpectedly Drop

Overseas shipments dropped 0.3 percent from a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs said yesterday in Beijing, trailing all 46 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey that had a median projection for a 5.5 percent gain. The trade slowdown resulted from a high basis of comparison with last year, the agency said in a statement.

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While imports used for processing and re-export "are still not doing very well, those that feed into China's own economy continue to grow quite robustly, reflecting a still pretty healthy picture in terms of demand," said Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in Hong Kong.

China's daily oil imports climbed to a record last month. Purchases have risen "as a result of expansion in the economy and its growing demand for resources," Zheng said.