The pace of China's import growth is set to slow in 2018 following a boom this year.
Inbound shipments will expand just 5 percent in 2018 after surging 14.9 percent this year, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Slower infrastructure investment, tighter monetary policy, weaker commodity inflation and high base effects are likely growth drags.
That's unwelcome news for major commodity exporters from Brazil to Australia, as well as key links in the manufacturing powerhouse's Asian supply chain from South Korea to Taiwan and Malaysia. China's 17.3 percent increase in imports for the first 11 months from a year earlier has boosted global trade, a tailwind now set to ease.