BEIJING — China’s export engine slowed sharply in March as war in the Middle East triggered shocks to energy and transportation costs, hurting global demand and exposing the risks in Beijing’s strategy of leaning on manufacturing to sustain growth.

The world’s second-largest economy surged into 2026 on red-hot AI-fueled electronics demand, raising expectations it could eclipse last year’s $1.2 trillion record trade surplus. But the conflict has disrupted global growth, leaving China especially vulnerable as it has relied on foreign demand to offset a prolonged inability to revive consumption at home.

Outbound shipments grew by just 2.5% in March, customs data showed on Tuesday, a five-month low, and far below the 21.8% surge seen over the January-February period. Economists had forecast growth of 8.3% in a Reuters poll.

“Export growth to major destinations slowed across the board,” said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, attributing the drop to global uncertainty over the Iran war.

“I think China’s trade surplus will shrink this year, as China cannot pass through the higher energy prices completely to foreign consumers,” he added.

The signs are already evident: China’s March trade surplus came in at just $51.13 billion, far below expectations of $108 billion.

A sharp 27.8% surge in imports – the strongest since November 2021 – weighed on the balance. That compared with a 19.8% increase in January-February and forecasts for 11.2% growth.

China’s status as the world’s largest manufacturer and energy importer leaves it acutely exposed to a global energy shock. Diversified supplies and large oil reserves offer some protection, but uncertainty over the conflict’s duration risks undermining artificial intelligence-fueled demand for chips and servers, blurring the growth picture.

Even China, long criticized by trading partners for subsidy-backed, cut-price manufacturing, is not insulated from the hit to buyers’ purchasing power as fuel and transport costs rise.

Separate GDP data due on Thursday is expected to show the $19 trillion economy regaining some momentum in the first quarter, but full-year growth is set to slow to 4.6% from last year’s 5.0%, broadly in line with the official target of 4.5%–5.0%.

CHINESE GOODS MORE COMPETITIVE?
Chinese goods will be “even more competitive” as the energy shock “pushes up the price in most of the countries” more than in China, said Chen Bo, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.

Chen expects global demand for Chinese-made electric vehicles to increase.

Fred Neumann, HSBC’s chief Asia economist, said China could stand to benefit from taking the decision in the early 2000s to stockpile commodities as it could help blunt the impact of raw-material shocks on factory gate prices.

China’s exports of refined oil products rose 20.5% month-on-month, totaling 4.6 million metric tons.

Disruptions to global energy supply lines will be felt in China, even if it’s not yet showing up in the data.

Natural gas imports for March dropped an annual 10.7%, the lowest level since October 2022, with Chinese ships diverting between eight to 10 cargoes over the course of the month to sell where prices are higher, according to ICIS, Kpler and Vortexa data.

Crude oil imports also fell 2.8% year-on-year, but this was predominantly due to a high base effect with March arrivals having been loaded onto ships before the war began.

The figures were further muddied by the seasonal effects of a late Lunar New Year national holiday, said Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, during which factories shut as workers down tools to celebrate.

“This explains the decline across the low-value-added sectors, textiles, garments, bags, toys, furniture, as they are reliant on migrant workers,”Mr. Xu said.

A high base is also a drag, after Chinese factories rushed shipments a year earlier to beat US President Donald Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff deadline.

March factory activity data out of China showed goods exports continued to support growth, but the war in Iran weighed on sentiment as commodity prices rose sharply, lifting input costs.

Some analysts expect sustained tech demand to underpin Chinese exports.

“For Q1 as a whole, export growth rose to its highest level in four years,” said Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics.

“Despite the energy price shock, exports should stay solid in the coming quarters, thanks to strong demand for semiconductors and green technologies.” — Reuters

SEOUL —  South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said rising tensions around the Strait of Hormuz made it hard to be optimistic about the fallout from the Iran war, warning that high oil prices and supply-chain strains were likely to persist for some time.

Mr. Lee told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday the government should treat prolonged disruption in global energy and raw materials markets as a given and reinforce its emergency response system.

“For the time being, difficulties in global energy and raw materials supply chains and high oil prices will continue,” Mr. Lee said.

“I ask that we pursue the development of alternative supply chains, medium- to long-term industrial restructuring, and the transition to a post-plastic economy as top-priority national strategic projects.”

Mr. Lee also urged ministries to move quickly to deploy a supplementary budget passed in response to the war.

At the meeting, ministers outlined steps to contain the economic shock from the conflict, including support for crude imports, controls against hoarding of petrochemical feedstocks and medical supplies, and expanded financial assistance for affected companies.

SECURING NEW ENERGY SUPPLIES
Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz were still affecting supplies and that even if the passage normalizes, it could take around 20 days for Middle Eastern cargoes to reach South Korea.

The government is prioritizing support for the passage of seven South Korea-bound oil tankers stuck in the Gulf area, a document shown during the cabinet meeting said.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told the meeting that the ministry had sent officials to the Congo, Algeria, and Libya in a bid to secure energy supplies, in addition to presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik travelling to countries such as Kazakhstan since last week.

“I also urge the parties to this war to take courageous steps toward the peace the world so desperately wants, based on the principles of protecting universal human rights and the lessons of history,” Mr. Lee said.

South Korea’s energy ministry said on Tuesday it would begin rolling out a revised seasonal and time-of-use electricity pricing system to shift power demand away from evening peak hours toward midday, when solar generation is higher. The new rates take effect for large industrial users from April 16 while weekend discounts for electric-vehicle charging will begin on April 18.

Meanwhile, Middle Eastern oil producers are in contact with South Korea about using the country’s petroleum storage facilities as disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz continue, a South Korean industry ministry official said on Tuesday, signaling growing interest in offshore crude storage hubs.

Yang Ki-wook, a senior official at the industry ministry, told a briefing that Middle Eastern countries were showing increased interest in storing oil outside the strait because a prolonged disruption in logistics would hit their economies and pre-positioning crude could reduce export risks.

Mr. Yang said that in addition to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), which already has a joint stockpiling agreement with South Korea, other Middle Eastern producers were also in contact, though he did not identify them. — Reuters

MUMBAI — At Indian startup Pronto’s training hub, women hone their chopping and mopping skills while learning how to send SOS signals if they feel unsafe inside customers’ homes. They are set to join India’s newest consumer craze: house help for $1 an hour.

Indu Jaiswar, 35, hopes doing household chores in her first job can help fund her son’s dream of becoming a doctor. “This is what we’ve been doing in our own homes for years. Might as well get paid for it,” said the mother of two.

In a country with an entrenched culture of outsourcing household work, Indian startups Pronto and Snabbit and listed rival Urban Company are training thousands of domestic helpers. Urban Company estimates India’s rapidly growing cleaning services market is worth an estimated $9 billion and spread across 53 million households.

Like Uber drivers, the helpers receive bookings on their apps, directing them to apartments in assigned neighborhoods within minutes and press a countdown timer in their apps before starting work. The potential annual earnings from working eight hours a day can be as high as $5,000 – a figure that far surpasses India’s per capita income of around $3,000.

The companies are betting big, burning millions of dollars to lure busy professionals in cities like New Delhi and Mumbai with under 99 rupee ($1) offerings that have no global parallel. Similar services can cost around $30 an hour in the United States, and around $7 in China.

However, the craze among consumers and workers is tempered by concerns about women’s safety in a country with high rates of sexual harassment. Unlike e-commerce couriers who spend just brief moments at doorsteps, housekeepers may spend hours inside private homes, exposing them to greater risks.

Soumya Chauhan, a principal at Dutch e-commerce investor Prosus, which has a stake in Urban Company, said she views worker safety as the fundamental operational challenge to solve.

“The platforms that successfully crack the safety protocols will earn the deepest consumer loyalty and the most sustainable market returns,” she said.

SAFETY RISKS
Cognizant of the challenges for a business that mainly employs women, Snabbit and Pronto said they have an in-app SOS button that alerts area supervisors in case of distress, while Pronto also offers self-defense training.

“In the offline world, the rate of abuse for a lot of these domestic workers is super high,” said Pronto’s 23-year-old CEO Anjali Sardana, adding that her company is trying to comfort its workers by assuring legal and medical support when needed.

Urban Company, which also offers services like plumbing, declined to comment for this story. It has previously said it offers a women-only safety helpline and an SOS app feature.

Shabnam Hashmi, a women’s rights activist, said the companies run extensive background checks on workers before onboarding them but should also check customer credentials. Currently users can simply log in on apps to book home help.

“How is it ever possible for these jobs to be safe for women – even with an SOS button? Unless they carry cameras, which is of course impossible, there is no way to know what happens behind that door,” she said.

Pronto worker Jaiswar has found her own workaround: she always calls a customer before visiting a home and goes “only if there’s a woman present”.

RAPID EXPANSION
The companies meanwhile are getting record orders.

Urban Company recorded its highest daily home services bookings of 50,000 in February. Snabbit’s have grown to 35,000 orders a day.

Bain Capital-backed Pronto logged a record 22,000 daily bookings in March, up from 2,500 daily orders in October, and raised $25 million in new funding.

Pronto CEO Sardana said she started the business last year after spotting an opportunity to serve three sides: strong demand from customers for reliable maids, workers’ need for more stable and safer jobs, and a gap in the market for a scalable service.

“It’s possible to build a win-win-win business,” she told Reuters.

Fuelling the trend is also India’s lack of a do-it-yourself culture, and Indians’ love for getting things done cheap.

In Bengaluru, 30-year-old Dhruv, who uses only a first name, said he spent 100 rupees ($1) per hour for Urban Company’s service to help unpack his utensils and hang curtains after moving house.

That helped him “save quite a bit of time and effort,” but the price does matter: “I wouldn’t pay 400 or 500 rupees for it.”

Snabbit founder Aayush Agarwal said his service was becoming popular among young couples and singles who want to schedule housekeepers and not hire monthly domestic helpers who are infamous for skipping work.

Pronto is offering some visits for 25 rupees in Facebook ads with taglines like “Maid on Leave? Don’t grieve”, while an Urban Company three-visit pack costs 66 rupees an hour.

Snabbit ads said a customer booked a helper “just to peel 20 potatoes”, while another had lined up a worker to “separate LEGO blocks by color.”

THE CASH BURN
Like many startups in their growth phase, the companies are paying their workers out-of-pocket to make the jobs attractive, but also doling out hefty discounts to reel in customers.

In October to December, Urban Company disclosures show it received 1.61 million home-help orders with each incurring a loss of 381 rupees ($4). The company says its “discounts are moderating” but its order values need to almost double to break even.

“Over a period of time, it is safe to say that it will become an earn-as-you-go model,” said Rahul Taneja, partner at Lightspeed, which has backed Snabbit.

At the Pronto center, where workers get a uniform and are trained to wear polished shoes, posters revealed potential payouts: home helpers can earn $1.60 per hour for 12 hours of work daily in a month, 48% more than what a new customer pays.

At more than $500 a month, that’s a big allure for Nisha Chandaliya, 22, who needs to support her ailing mother and has quit a call-center job that stretched long hours and paid only $180 a month.

“It’s exhausting to clean six-seven homes, but I need the stability. I can’t afford to go back,” she said. ($1 = 93.3010 Indian rupees) — Reuters

WASHINGTON/DUBAI — The US military began a blockade of Iran’s ports, angering Tehran and adding uncertainty around the crucial waterway, although hopes for dialogue to end the war provided some relief to oil markets where benchmark prices fell below $100 on Tuesday.

After a breakdown of weekend talks in Islamabad between the two adversaries, a US official said there was continued engagement and forward motion on trying to get to an agreement. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also said efforts were still under way to resolve the conflict.

US President Donald Trump said Iran had been in touch on Monday and wanted to make a deal but that he would not sanction any agreement allowing Tehran to have a nuclear weapon.

Since the United States and Israel began the war on February 28, Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz to all vessels except its own, saying passage would be permitted only under Iranian control and subject to a fee. The fallout has been widespread, since nearly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies flowed through the narrow waterway before the start of the conflict.

Mr. Trump has said Washington would block Iranian vessels and any ships that paid such tolls and that any Iranian “fast-attack” ships that went near the blockade would be eliminated. Tehran has threatened to hit naval ships going through the strait and to retaliate against its Gulf neighbors’ ports.

Shipping data on LSEG showed Chinese-owned oil-and-chemicals tanker Rich Starry passed through the strait on Tuesday – the first since the US blockade began at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Monday. The vessel, which departed Sharjah anchorage off the coast of Dubai on Monday heading for China, had earlier turned back minutes after approaching the strait.

The US’s blockade has further clouded the outlook for global energy security and the supply of a vast array of goods that relies on petroleum, and has little, if any, international backing.

NATO allies including Britain and France said they would not be drawn into the conflict by taking part in the blockade, stressing instead the need to reopen the waterway.

Despite the breakdown of talks between the US and Iran on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation, told Fox News on Monday the US “made a lot of progress” by communicating to Tehran where the US “could make some accommodation” and where it would remain inflexible.

He said Mr. Trump was adamant that any enriched nuclear material must be removed from Iran and a mechanism must be established to verify that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

Tehran “moved in our direction, which is why I think we would say that we had some good signs, but they didn’t move far enough,” Mr. Vance said, without disclosing details.

CEASEFIRE UNDER STRAIN
The ceasefire that halted six weeks of US-Israeli airstrikes and retaliatory fire from Iran across the Gulf looked in jeopardy, with only a week left to run.

The US military’s Central Command said the blockade would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations” entering or leaving Iranian ports in the Gulf and Gulf of Oman. It would not impede neutral transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz to or from non-Iranian destinations, it said in a note to seafarers seen by Reuters.

An Iranian military spokesperson called any US restrictions on international shipping “piracy,” warning that if Iranian ports were threatened, no port in the Gulf or Gulf of Oman would be secure. Any military vessels approaching the strait would violate the ceasefire, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said.

Mr. Trump said Iran’s navy had been “completely obliterated” during the war, adding that only a small number of “fast-attack ships” remained.

“Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal,” Mr. Trump said on social media.

He was apparently referring to the US strikes carried out against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The strikes, which began in September, killed more than 160 people. The US military has not provided evidence that the vessels were ferrying drugs.

LEBANON FACES ATTACKS
With the war unpopular at home and rising energy prices causing political blowback, Mr. Trump paused the US-Israeli bombing campaign last week after threatening to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” unless it reopened the strait.

In a letter to the United Nations, Iran’s UN delegation on Monday asked for reparations from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan, alleging they have allowed their territory to be used in the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Israel has continued to bombard Lebanon and on Monday troops launched an attack it said was intended to seize a key south Lebanon town from Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israeli military said on Tuesday that an Israeli soldier was killed and three reservists were wounded during combat in southern Lebanon.

Israel and ‌the US have ⁠said the campaign against Hezbollah was not part of the ceasefire, while Iran has insisted it is. — Reuters