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California Exports Tumble, Beacon Economics Predicts Return to “Relative Normalcy” Q3
Beacon Economics reports exports of California goods took a wholly expected tumble in March. The research group analyzed the latest U.S. trade statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and found California businesses shipped a total of $13.57 billion in merchandise abroad in March, a nominal 12.7% decline from the $15.55 billion in exports recorded in March 2019.
Shipments of manufactured products by California firms were down 11.8% to $8.86 billion from $10.05 billion one year earlier, points out Beacon Economics. Similarly, exports of non-manufactured goods, which mainly encompasses the Golden State’s agricultural products and raw materials, were off by 6.1% to $1.86 billion from $1.98 billion.
Beacon Economics notes, as has been the case in the past several months, the state’s export numbers were further pulled down by a 19.1% drop in re-exports, to $2.84 billion from $3.51 billion.
Beacon Economics’ Christopher Thornberg says, “The impact of the pandemic on global demand for California- produced goods is clear in the March data and will likely be substantially worse in April when those numbers are released. These forces will inevitably start to hurt labor markets later in the year until the global situation starts to improve, and while that is some months out, data suggests the public health mandates that have shut down such a large part of the economy are helping to reduce the spread of the virus and most nations are seeing declines in the number of new cases. As long as those trends continue, we anticipate relative normalcy to return in the 3rd quarter of this year.”
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- ◦Economy
