Observer Report Islamabad
China’s foreign trade maintained year-on-year growth for the 14th consecutive month in July, said the General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Aug. 7.
The country’s total export and import of goods stood at 21.34 trillion yuan ($3.3 trillion) in the first seven months of this year, up 24.5 percent from a year ago, or 22.3 percent from that in 2019.
Exports were 11.66 trillion yuan, growing 24.5 per-cent year on year, or up 23 percent from 2019, and imports stood at 9.68 trillion yuan, increasing 24.4 percent and 21.4 percent respectively from 2020 and 2019. The trade surplus was 1.98 trillion yuan, up 24.8 percent year on year.
In the first seven months, general foreign trade was 13.21 trillion yuan, up 27.6 percent from a year ago. It accounted for 61.9 percent of China’s total for-eign trade, up 1.5 percentage points compared with that a year ago.
Growth was observed in trade with major partners including ASEAN, the EU and the US. In the first seven months, ASEAN was the largest trading part-ner of China. The total imports and exports between China and ASEAN nations stood at 3.12 trillion yuan, up 24.6 percent.
During the same period, China’s imports to the EU, its second largest trading partner, also grew 23.4 percent to 2.96 trillion yuan.
From the January-July period, trade with the Belt and Road countries increased by 25.5 percent to 6.3 trillion yuan.
The private sector saw the fastest growth and an improved proportion in China’s foreign trade. From January to July, private firms reported imports and exports of 10.23 trillion yuan, up 31 percent and accounting for 47.9 percent of China’s foreign trade, 2.4 percentages higher from a year ago.
Meanwhile, the imports and exports of foreign-invested compa-nies saw an uptick of 16.7 percent and accounted for 36.4 percent of China’s foreign trade. Besides, state-owned enterprises also saw a 24.4 percent growth in their imports and exports, which took up 15.3 per-cent of China’s foreign trade.
According to GAC statistics, the exports of me-chanical and electrical products maintained positive growth. In the first seven months, China exported 6.88 trillion yuan of such products, up 25.5 percent and accounting for 59 percent of the country’s total exports.
Among them, the exports of automatic data processing devices and relevant spare parts stood at 879.28 billion yuan, up 14.2 percent; the exports of mobile phones stood at 485.21 billion yuan, up 15.6 percent; the exports of automobiles (chassis in-cluded) stood at 114.08 trillion yuan, up 102.5 per-cent.
