China’s June exports fall 12.4%, imports drop 6.8%

China’s exports fell 12.4% in June year-on-year, while imports contracted 6.8%, customs data showed on Thursday, suggesting manufacturers are struggling to find buyers while overseas economies wrestle with inflation and rising interest rates. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast exports to have shrunk 9.5% and imports to have fallen 4.0%. The drop in exports was the worst since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic more than three years ago. Momentum in China’s post-pandemic recovery has slowed after a brisk pickup in the first quarter, with analysts now downgrading their projections for the economy for the rest of the year as factory output slows in the face of persistently weak global demand. Policymakers are now reckoning with the prospect of prolonged slower growth in the world’s second-largest economy of around just 3% annually, according to economists’ forecasts. That is less than half the rates typical throughout recent decades and creates the feel of an economy in recession.