China’s foreign trade registered stable growth in the first 10 months of 2019 by expanding 2.4 % year on year, the General Administration of Customs said Friday.
During the period, China’s total foreign trade volume reached 25.63 trillion yuan (about 3.67 trillion U.S. dollars).
Exports climbed 4.9 % to 13.99 trillion yuan (about 2 trillion U.S. dollars), while imports dropped 0.4 percent to 11.64 trillion yuan (about 1.67 trillion U.S. dollars) from January to October, data of the General Administration of Customs showed.
China saw its trade surplus widen by 42.3% year on year to 2.35 trillion yuan during the ten-month period.
“The growth of global economy and trade has slowed down since the beginning of this year, but the Chinese economy has maintained stability while seeing more resilient performance in foreign trade. China’s monthly foreign trade volume has remained at a high level of over 2.7 trillion yuan (around 386 billion U.S. dollars) for four consecutive months. Our country’s foreign trade has maintained a stable trend on the whole,” said Li Kuiwen, head of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs.
The resilience and stability of foreign trade indicate that the Chinese government has kept improving the business environment, with the adoption of a spate of measures including streamlining administration and delegating power to lower levels, introducing more cuts in taxes and fees, and opening the country wider to the outside world since early 2019.
This year, China ranks the 31st in terms of the business environment, 15 places higher than 2018, according to the recent World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business 2020” report, with the cross-border trade indicator up nine places to the 56th position.
“China has just finished negotiations with New Zealand to upgrade the bilateral trade agreement, and most negotiations about the RCEP Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have concluded.
Relevant policies have created favorable conditions for the development of China’s foreign trade,” said Tu Xinquan, head of the China Institute for WTO Studies under the University of International Business and Economics.
The foreign trade volume of the central and western parts of China presented an active performance in the 10-month period, with the imports and exports registered by the 12 provincial-level regions in western China growing 10.9% and the six provincial-level regions in central China going up 13.6 %, respectively overtaking the average national foreign trade growth rate by 8.5 % and 11.2 %.
“At the ongoing second CIIE, China announced its new measures for promoting opening-up, that demonstrates once again the confidence and determination of China to open itself wider to the outside world. Next, we will resolutely implement the work deployment of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council on stabilizing employment, finance, foreign trade, foreign investment, investment and expectations. Moreover, we will deepen reform in customs services, consistently improve business environment of ports, and enhance quality of both imports and exports amid stability,” Li said
