December 2019 Trade Bulletin

Highlights of This Month’s Edition

• Bilateral trade: The U.S. goods trade deficit with China totaled $31.3 billion in October 2019, down 27.5 percent year-on-year—the largest decrease in the bilateral goods deficit in more than three years.
• Policy trends in China’s economy: Beijing doubles down on industrial policy to steer the economy as negotiations with the United States continue; Harbin Bank becomes the fourth Chinese regional bank to get government backing; three city commercial banks issued perpetual bonds in November 2019, becoming the first subnational banks to raise capital this way since the State Council cleared the instrument for use in December 2018; MSCI finalized the expansion of the weighting assigned to Chinese A-shares in two of its widely followed indexes; Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce firm, reported record Singles’ Day revenue, but sales growth continued to slow amid economic headwinds and increased competition from rival firms.
• In focus – Chinese telecom operators launch 5G services: China’s three major telecom operators officially launched 5G networks on November 1, 2019; 5G services are planned in 57 Chinese cities by the end of 2019 compared to 34 cities currently in the United States.