China’s Goods Exports Face Increasing Headwinds, Ministry Warns

China’s Ministry of Commerce has warned the country can’t be “blindly optimistic” that goods exports will continue to surge, pointing to increasing headwinds that are threatening the torrid pace of growth seen so far this year.

“As the global pandemic combines with changes unseen in a century, challenges at home and abroad coexist, and short-, medium-, and long-term risks layer on top of each other, we cannot ignore four major macro-level risks,” Ren Hongbin, a vice commerce minister, told a briefing Wednesday. He pointed to the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on world economic growth, rising protectionism and anti-globalization trends, accelerating inflation, restructuring of global industrial and supply chains, as well as micro-level problems affecting Chinese exporters.