They were looking for a 9 rise. Imports fell 12. 7 . Estimates were for 8iron percent for a 10 fall. That is most likely due to falling Commodity Prices driving down the value of imports. That brings the march trade surplus to just over 3 billion. Given that 60 billion dollars surplus in february, economists were looking for about 60 billion. Economists say the march drop is due to that timing of the Chinese New Year. They say the International Market demand is weak. Export orders are falling and all the late and only the u. S. Market is doing well right now. This shows underlying weakness in the manufacturing sector. The overcapacity, there is a lot of hide labor cost, high financing cost. Customs officials said exporters are losing orders and all these higher costs are hurting trade. We of course see weakness in the eurozone and japan hurting trade. Pmi has been weak [no audio] rishaad clearly weve got a technical gremlin in the works. Lets get back to the markets. Heres zeb. Zeb the export numbers disappointing investors. You are seeing it no more so than in the australian dollar. Im going to get out the red pen. Look at that drop. I tried to make a circle. You see the move on the australian dollar. It is down over 1 . The aussie headed for its steepest drop in two weeks. Take a look. Nearly . 76. Take a look where it was on friday. This is filtering through modestly to the stock market. Lets look at what is happening on the China Enterprises index in hong kong. These are the shares the Chinese Companies listed in hong kong, that are seeing a buying frenzy. You are seeing a modest pullback on the trait number. Consumer services chairs, utilities, telecoms, seeing the biggest declines at the moment. These are declines within this index. Financials still powering ahead. We told you about china merchants bank. Look within the financial elements. Banks are where the action is. China construction and the star performer here, china merchants bank. Shares of about 18 . Lets look further at the broader markets. This is what is happening in hong kong, shanghai, and across the asiapacific. Southeast asia with some modest downside because of those chinese trade numbers. That index is modestly lower. The nikkei in a lunch break right now. Shanghai continues to rise. It is a 1. 3 gain on the a shares. The hang seng index of 0. 3 . We come off the best Weekly Performance of the hang seng worldwide last week on this optimism this buying activity in chinese shares. Even with this move lower in exports, investors continuing to buy into this market. Rishaad thank you. We are going to get you back to beijing. We are going to have a look at the trade data, christine. Lets have a look at what this means to gdp. What are people telling you about whether this trade position is going to improve . Christine the bureau has said that while uncertainties do exist in the Second Quarter, the export momentum, Second Quarter exports are improving. It remains to be seen how much of a improve. At the same time, we have seen the world bank cut the china 2015 growth forecast to 7. 1 from 7. 2 . They are saying that china may need stimulus measures to counter risks, and they need to make efforts to meet trade targets. We are expecting firstquarter gdp numbers on wednesday to rise 7 , very much in mind with the government target of 7 for the year. Whether it is going to be easy to meet that target is the question. China is doing plenty to try to meet that target as it tries to sustain growth in the underlying economy. Manufacturing sector, a lot of weakness, a lot of structural problems. At the same time, they are trying to set up an initiative to boost fiscal spending, inject some growth into the economy. We will see if that works. The world bank has said that that and other Infrastructure Spending will help chinas economic growth. We will see what those figures say on wednesday. Rishaad christine, thank you. Angie the World Bank SeesSlower Growth for emerging east asian economies this year. It says china is the cause. Lets get to has Haslinda Amin. What else do we know here . Haslinda well, like we said earlier when china sneezes, asia catches a cold. Growth is set for 6. 7 percent down from 6. 9 last year. It is because of a cooling china. Chinas slowdown is significant enough that it is causing even with cheaper oil, with a recovery in the u. S. As weve been reporting chinas policy to ensure more Sustainable Growth tackles financial vulnerability. The World Bank Says, expect chinas growth to slow down as well. 7. 1 this year versus 7. 4 before. Even with growth being a tad lower for developing east asia the region will account for a third of global growth, twice the combined contributions of all other developing regions. Southeast asia is poised to gain from a drop in energy prices. That will boost demand. Not looking too bad not looking dire for developing east asia. Angie not dire right now, but what about risks ahead . What is the world bank saying there . Haslinda there are significant risks. The World Bank Says the weak european economy is a risk. Also a week japanese economy. And dont forget the rising u. S. Dollar. That may raise borrowing costs, beat financial volatility. We are seeing it happening so many times before. Massive capital outflows. That may happen yet again, more sharply than you think this time. Also, a risk. If china were to slow down more significantly than it is now, signs are pretty encouraging that wont happen. It has policy buffers like large foreign reserves, ability to deploy stimulus. Chinas central bank has cut rates twice to boost the economy. The china risk, pretty muted at this time. Angie ok, thanks for that. As Haslinda Amin there, World Bank Reports coming for us live from singapore. Later this hour, we speak with the east asia and pacific chief economist for the world bank. Sudhir shetty will be joining us live 11 30 hong kong and singapore time. Rishaad Hillary Clinton has ended the suspense announcing she is seeking election to the white house in 2016. Clinton is spending the next 68 weeks reaching out the murders reaching out to voters in early voting states. She promises to put middleclass americans first. Im running for president. Americans have fought their way back from tough Economic Times but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday americans need a champion. I want to be that champion. Rishaad turning our attention to sharp now. It has fallen from a twoyear high. The apple supplier plans to buy a 10 stake in sharp but wants to have a say in how the company is managed. Sharp says that it plans to seek government help to spin off part of its liquid Crystal Display business. Sharp is looking at its third annual loss in four years. Netflix looking to make its shares more attractive to the average investor. It will do that with the help of a huge stock split. Look up and he has asked investors to approve an increase in share authorization. There are currently 170 million shares in Organization Currently trading at about 454 a share. Analysts say a split would make netflix more accessible to retail investors. Angie still to come, spoiler other. Episodes of game of thrones leaked hours before its premiere. More on that later in the show. Next, losing steam. China exports take an unexpected dip. More reaction after this short break. You are watching asia edge. Rishaad the summit of americas has wrapped up in panama after a meeting between the u. S. And cuban president s. They shook hands following the first such talks for more than 50 years. Castro said the two leaders agreed to disagree when necessary. Obama will make a decision soon on whether to remove cubas designation as a state sponsored by terrorism. Angie turkey has recalled its ambassador to the vatican after the pope called the killing of armenians the first genocide of the 21st century. Historians estimate that up to 1. 5 million armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of world war i. Turkey criticized the pope for what it called spreading hatred. Rishaad a germanwings plane was stopped on the runway and searched on sunday after the carrier received a bomb threat. The plane was about to take off for milan. All passengers and crew got off safely. Police found no signs of explosives. Last month, all 150 people on board a Germanwings Flight died when it crashed in france in what investigators believe was a suicide by the copilot. Angie back to our top story, the unexpected march slump in chinas exports adding to the strain on its slowing economy. We are joined now by hsbcs cohead of economic research. Fred, is this a case of bad news preceding good news . Fred the stock market already seems to think so. We have seen expectations of more easing by china being ratcheted up. I think this number underlines the Downside Risk for china. It feels as though officials in beijing are taking note of this weakening economic data, not just on the export side, but also in the Real Estate Market. Easing is likely to be the theme for the Second Quarter. Rishaad the export numbers caught everybody off guard. Calls already, this will go down well in congress, to devalue. Fred that is going to go down very well. We think they will actually hold the line, in part because there is an important decision coming up at the imf. There is going to be a decision whether to include the u. N. You dont want to rock the boat in washington too much if you want that inclusion. We think they are going to hold the line until then. There are also good reasons not to devalue. It would send a signal that china is panicking too much. It would risk capital outflows. Rishaad it would mask inefficiencies, wouldnt it . Fred it would. It probably wouldnt be the cure for china. The domestic sector is decelerating. Devaluing the currency is not the magic will it that cures china. Angie this also on the heels of u. S. Dollar strength playing havoc not only in china but in the region. Fred thats right. If you look at why these numbers are suddenly so dire, it is in part because the euro depreciated. The euro is a big export market for china. Make no mistake, it means that some chinese exporter has taken a hit on the profit margin. Exporting to china to cut prices to retain market share. There is a lot of pain in the export market in china. No doubt about it. There is some risk to the labor market. Remember, we have factories with exports not doing well. That could shake up the labor market. Angie absolutely. They are going to vietnam right now, and even cambodia and myanmar. Fred or further inland. They are now trying to build another silk road. But there is no quick solution to this. We have already seen the first signs of the labor market weakening. If you look at the employment indices, the pmi is starting to signal greater weakness in the labor market. Thats something that has always been redlined for the leadership. They say, we do care about labor markets. Rishaad we talk about how the oil price being lower is a net positive. How is it a net positive for china, if at all . Fred china is the worlds Biggest Energy importer. So it pays less for that. Rishaad we are not seeing it. Fred that is the story of across asia. We havent seen a bounce from lower oil. That suggests that the slowdown in china is bigger. If you had maintained oil at the same price as last year, we would have seen a sharp or deceleration. This suggests that a lot more needs to be done. Angie also, i wonder if we should some liquidity issues for the smaller and Medium Enterprises as well trying to get their hands on some dollars. Rishaad peertopeer financing could be a recipe for disaster. Fred, we will see you in 20 minutes. Angie coming up next, setting boundaries. Hong kong imposes limits on visitors from shenzhen as tensions rise. Rishaad this is coming up on the other side of the break. Rishaad you are back with asia edge. The apple watch had its first weekend on display and got a muted response compared with past product launches. Unusual qs marked the launch around the world. 14 people lined up at apples beijing store for a first look. Online preorders so estimated delivery dates for some orders stretch into july. The watch officially goes on sale on the 24th of this month. We spoke to some of the customers after their first hands on with the device. You can gauge their reactions for yourself. Very easy to use. Good feel to it. I was impressed. Not too big, not too small. Im a big apple fan. I like goodlooking, functional products. I dont want to have to pull out my phone for everything i want to do. Im a techie. My coworkers expect that i have the newest and latest. If i dont have it, they will look at me and be disappointed. I dont think i need one. I would say it is a major one. It may be obsolete in a year, but then i will buy another one. I think it will be a success. I dont think apple have made many flops. I think the low priced watches will be a success. I think it remains to be seen. I think it is going to be up there. Angie china has put a limit on the number of trips that residents of the Southern City of shenzhen can make to hong kong. Weve got our reporter live with more. This is a little controversial, isnt it . Rosalind you could say that. Shenzhen residence will no longer be able to make multiple trips to hong kong. For people who are applying for these new permits people who already have the multiple entry permits can continue to use them. They will take a bit of time for this policy to come into place. That is according to a news agency citing the ministry of Public Security in china. Residents who are allowed to make one trip per week will be able to stay for anything they want. But they cannot make multiple trips in and out of hong kong within one day or even one week. Angie to be clear, the people who already have multiple entry visas can keep them, so they are grandfathered in. Do we know how long it extends . Rosalind i dont know how long each permit will last, but they are not issuing new permits for residents of shenzhen. China i just policy according to a request from hong kong. Large numbers of tourists, they say are putting pressure on hong kong resources and hong kongs capacity for tourism. Thats why the government had to make this adjustment. They had 47 million tourists from china last year. Many of them were people with multiple entry permits. Angie lets talk about those tensions that have been rising. Weve seen demonstrations by local hong kong residents against the socalled daytrippers from shenzhen. Rosalind there is something called parallel trading. Basically, people come to hong kong to buy necessities. It could be diapers, baby formula, clothes, domestic items, then they go back across the board and sell them in china. Some people in hong kong are saying that it deprives hong kong of the ability to buy them. It also drives up prices in hong kong. People are unhappy. You have seen this push against parallel traders in hong kong but also an underlying concern about people coming across from the mainland to hong kong. Angie thanks for that. Rishaad we are going to take a break. On the other side, we are looking forward to the afternoon of business in tokyo. The lunch break is coming to an end. A slight decline during the morning period of trading. Lets see what happens when japan reopens right after this. \ angie chinas export surprise. An unexpected fall in shipments could push beijing towards joining the currency war. When china sneezes, its neighbors catch a cold. The world bank predicts tougher times ahead for emerging asia. And the monday hangover. Asian shares break their longest winning streak in years. Lets get the latest from the markets right now. Zeb eckert has got the latest. Zeb that winning streak appears to be broken. Lets look at the msci asiapacific index. It has been trading lower. We havent been able to sustain those gains on a regional basis because of some headwinds. Numbers in china adding to that negative sentiment that has crept through to the tokyo market and several Southeast Asian markets. The hang seng and the shanghai composite continue to trade higher. Investors largely shrugging off this march export data from china. We are continuing strong gains that we began last week and the week before as chinese investors seek those bargain opportunities in the hong kong market. They are trying to capitalize on the bargains. The chinese shares are cheaper in hong kong than they are in the asian markets. Checking on the hong kong movers, this is what we have. Hong Kong Exchange headed for a record high on this massive trading volume. Much of it coming from china. Investors around the world focused on the hong kong market. Tech stocks are doing well. Gaming stocks are not doing well. Across the region, the afx 200 now trading higher, but weve seen a big drop in the aussie dollar heading towards a sixyear low as the china trade data has slumped. Angie we also got some data from japan. It is returning from a lunch break right now. How is it beginning the afternoon session . Zeb we saw curious moves to the downside today in japan. We are waiting for trade to begin again. The story is that the bank of japan expects the economy to continue its moderate recovery. We have comments from Haruhiko Kuroda at the Branch Managers meeting the boj Branch Managers meeting and we will be watching the latest numbers that come in this week. As for the nikkei, it is back to business. Utilities have been quite electric. Look at that, 16 gains. Insurers seeing a bit of downside. We will watch that closely in the tokyo market. Utilities, one of the key themes across the asiapacific. Utilities falling today. Power producers lower on the whole by 4 . Rishaad beijing may be facing an even bigger battle as they try to boost the chinese economy. Exports in march unexpe