Asia: Trade data suggest world-trade growth is falling sharply – ABN AMRO

According to Han de Jong, chief economist at ABN AMRO, some remarkable weakness was seen in recently published data on trade in some Asian countries.

Key Quotes

“Korea provides the most up-to-date measure of trade. After 20 days each month, the country provides data on trade flows during the first 20 days of that month. The January numbers show a 14.6% yoy decline of exports, against +1.0% in December. Imports also weakened: -9.5% yoy against + 2.2% in December. Taiwan released export orders data for December. They were down 10.5% yoy following a drop of 2.1% in November.”

“Nevertheless, the data suggests that the US economy is doing OK, that Japan is doing OK-ish and that China and Europe are struggling. As for China, we assume the economy has slowed and probably more than the ‘gradual slowdown path’ would imply.”