China: Import growth slowed amid import tariff cuts - Nomura

Analysts at Nomura note that China’s import growth slowed to 14.3% y-o-y in September from 20.0% in August, likely signalling sluggish domestic demand.

Key Quotes

“After the import tariff cuts in May and July (mainly on medicines, automobile and consumer goods), China in late September announced it was cutting the most-favoured nation import tariff rates on certain products (totally 1,585 product lines) effective 1 November (combining the impact of all import tariff cuts so far this year, the average tariff rate has been lowered to 7.5% from 9.8%).”

“Given this, we believe importers could postpone some of their shipment orders from October to November to better benefit from the import tariff cut, as they did for the July cut.”