Equities Weekly | China Equities – China's Resilience in Adapting to Trade Challenges
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Chief Investment Office26 Feb 2025
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China equities: China's resilience in adapting to trade challenges. Since the onset of the US-China trade war in 2018, Chinese companies have demonstrated remarkable resilience, effectively adapting to external challenges. By diversifying their income sources and increasing overseas contributions, they have reduced reliance on any single market. Strategic efforts such as enhancing outbound investments, securing global supply chains, localising production, and expanding into emerging markets have strengthened China’s ability to weather external risks. As a result, China has successfully broadened its trade income, with its balance of trade with the rest of the world surpassing that of the US by end-2022 and has continued to rise since then.

Despite tariff uncertainties, we expect China to maintain a proactive policy stance through targeted monetary easing and fiscal support to bolster domestic demand and growth momentum. Although the market’s underweight position among global funds is unlikely to reverse soon, the narrowing of this underweight stance could offer upside potential. With continued efforts to diversify trade partners and policy implementations, China remains well-positioned for resilient growth. We recommend investors to stay engaged with the broader Asian markets, including China, where fundamentals and the investment outlook remain strong despite short-term volatility.

Equity fund flows: The week ended 19 Feb witnessed a strong inflow for Developed Market (DM) Equity Funds at USD22.1bn, and an outflow of USD5.3bn for Emerging Market (EM) Equity Funds. US Equity Funds saw an inflow of USD12.1bn, given positive sentiment around the delay of reciprocal tariffs by the US. Meanwhile, Europe recorded their biggest inflow since early 2022 at USD4.0bn. Within the EM space, China Equity Funds experienced outflows of USD4.9bn as profits to be taken amid chillier US trade relations by the weeks.

Figure 1: Diversifying trade partners


Source: Wind, DBS


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