On July 19, the State Council Information Office held a press conference to introduce the 2023′s business work and operations in the first half of the year. Li Xingqian, director-general of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said that since this year, foreign trade has faced an obvious increase in external challenges. Overall, in the face of severe and complex external environment, the first half of the foreign trade withstood the pressure, showing a strong resilience. There are three standouts:First, it has achieved overall stability in the scale of trade and maintained growth in the volume of trade. From January to June, the import and export of goods in our country exceeded RMB 20 trillion, up 2.1% year on year and 36.7% compared with the first half of 2019. We continue to maintain our position as the leading country in trade in goods. Market share is steadily increasing. According to the latest figures from the WTO, global exports fell 1.6 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year earlier, while China’s international market share of exports rose 14 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from the first quarter of last year. Monitoring also shows that, in the second quarter, China’s export share of the international market still maintained a steady rising trend. China’s export market is diversified and its products are abundant, effectively offsetting the impact of weak external demand and cyclical decline of some products. The current performance of China’s foreign trade is in line with expectations.
Second, we have achieved continuous improvement in the quality of trade. In the first six months of this year, emerging markets’ share of imports and exports rose 1.8 percentage points from a year earlier to 63.5 percent. Imports and exports to FTA partners grew by 2.4 per cent and to “Belt and Road” countries by 9.8 per cent, both faster than overall export growth. The export products are upgrading in quality, high-quality, high-technology, high value-added products strong growth. Electric passenger cars, solar cells and lithium-ion batteries added 1.8 percent to overall export growth in the first half of the year. Foreign trade format is also innovative development. The Ministry of Commerce copied and promoted 30 good practice cases of new forms of foreign trade to the whole country. In the first half of this year, cross-border e-commerce exports grew by 19.9% , maintaining the momentum of rapid development.
Post time: Jul-19-2023