Weak Chinese trade data yesterday underlined the likelihood of more Beijing-backed spending to deal with the damage done to the domestic economy by firms cutting production, inventories and imports in the face of anaemic global demand.

Imports fell 2.6 per cent on the year in August, confounding expectations of a 3.5 per cent rise. Exports grew 2.7 per cent, below forecasts of a three per cent rise in a Reuters poll.

Such weak data is grim news in a country where exports generate 25 per cent of gross domestic product, support an estimated 200 million jobs and where analysts already expect the economy to have its weakest year of expansion since 1999.

“The import surprise on the downside is very unusual. It is an alarming sign for the government and they probably saw it coming,” Zhang Zhiwei,chief China economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, told Reuters.

“We’ve now pretty much got the full batch of August data and it’s clear that the slowdown pressure is growing and that the government is feeling the need to act. I think there will be further easing in the months ahead.”

Some economists fear the outlook is so poor that China may miss its official 7.5 per cent growth target for 2012 without a fresh round of swift policy stimulus on top of the monetary and fiscal easing undertaken since last year and the €117 billion-worth of infrastructure projects announced last week.

The numbers – despite a bounce in the trade surplus in August to €20.8 billion – will solidify market expectations for further stimulus and monetary easing to support growth as China heads towards a once-a-decade leadership change later this year.

The trade data was some of the worst since the depths of the global financial crisis and underline President Hu Jintao’s weekend warning to leaders of Asia-Pacific economies of the “grave challenges” facing global growth.

Analysts said it was unusual for Hu to make such remarks about the economy at an international gathering and could signal a new level of concern emerging in China that is potentially a worry for the wider Asia region.

“The rest of Asia had been hoping China would come up with some sort of support, stimulus, in terms of consumption but this is not happening,” said Daiwa economist Kevin Lai.

China’s last officially declared stimulus package was the four trillion yuan spending plan unveiled in 2008, when global trade ground to a halt and at least 20 million Chinese workers lost their jobs in a matter of months as financial turmoil swept around the world.