UBS On-Air: Paul Donovan Daily Audio 'Trade tales'

China’s May trade data had a fairly large drop in exports, attributed to weakness in exports to the US and Japan. This does not necessarily signal a sharp decline in global demand. Global demand patterns now favor services rather than goods (China is not a service exporter). Moreover, there was surprising strength in China’s first quarter export numbers, helping to boost the GDP numbers. Potentially the strength reported in the first quarter was at the expense of reported export data later on.