China’s export and import data were better than expected in June, showing early signs of recovery in the world’s second largest economy.

The Wall Street Journal listed several economists’ reactions to China’s trade data on July 13:

China’s June exports came in better than expected, with further moderate improvement in exports to major markets. Following the general weakness in recent months, imports rebounded notably in June, including a number of major commodity imports. The June trade report suggests that exports have recovered at a decent pace lately, following the volatility around the Lunar New Year holidays. — J.P. Morgan

Overall, we expected both exports and imports to improve in the second half of the year, and China’s trade surplus to hit a record high in 2015. We expect the growth of China’s exports to accelerate to 7% in the second half and annual export growth to reach 4%. — Larry Hu and Jerry Peng, Macquarie

The June trade data are relatively upbeat. A further recovery in external demand pushed up export growth to a four-month high. The recent rebound in export growth, in both volume and value terms, suggests that downward pressure on external demand has eased. — Julian Evans-Pritchard, Capital Economics

The rise in China’s export growth was consistent with better exports elsewhere, such as Korea, suggesting that external demand may have improved. The stronger-than-expected trade growth in June points to some sequential improvement in the economy, which may slow the pace of policy easing by the People’s Bank of China. We believe the likely timing of the next easing measure, possibly in the form of an RRR cut, will be in August. The smaller contraction in imports in June, despite lower commodity prices, points to a sequential improvement in domestic demand. Meanwhile, more signs that China’s economy is stabilizing should provide support to our view of a stable yuan, especially against a backdrop of global concerns stemming from Greece. — Nomura

Both China’s exports and imports data are better than expected in June. Trade data in the second quarter overall showed improvement compared with the first quarter of the year. — CICC

-- Wall Street Journal