MOFCOM Department of Foreign Trade Comments on Foreign Trade Situation of China in January-November, 2017

December 11, 2017  Source: Ministry of Commerce Website

MOFCOM has paid special attention to the implementation of a series of trade supporting policies launched by the State Council together with departments and regions since this year. It has optimized the layout of international market, domestic regions, goods structure, business entity and trade type, facilitated the construction of the transformation and the upgrade base of foreign trade, trade platform and international marketing network, and continued to promote the pilot projects of new activities of foreign trade, the innovative development and the gradient transfer of processing trade and effective import policies. Positive effects have been achieved in each work, and rapid growth has been made in import and export, with the structure further optimized, the motivations gradually transferred and the stable and upward trend consolidated. According to the statistics of the Custom House, in January-November, China's total import and export value reached 25.14 trillion yuan, with an increase of 15.6% year on year (similarly hereinafter). Among these, the export reached 13.85 trillion yuan, with an increase of 11.6%, and the import reached 11.29 trillion yuan, with an increase of 20.9%. The surplus was 2.56 trillion yuan, narrowing by 16.7%.

The Head of the MOFCOM Department of Foreign Trade pointed out that in January-November, 2017, China's foreign trade mainly presented the following features:

In terms of commodity structure, exports of mechanical and electronic products registered 8.05 trillion yuan, up 12.6%, taking up 58.1%, and 0.5 percentage points higher than that of the same period last year. Among these, exports of automobile, computer and its accessories, integrated circuit and mobile phone grew by 27.5%, 19.3%, 12.7% and 9.1% respectively. Exports of China’s seven labor-intensive industries like textile and clothing also grew rapidly with a growth of 8.3%.

In terms of business entity, the exports of private enterprises reached 6.46 trillion yuan, up 13.8%, taking up 46.7%, and 0.8 percentage point higher than that of the same period last year. The private enterprises continued to be the largest business entity regarding exports. The exports of foreign-invested enterprises reached 5.96 trillion yuan, up 9.7%, taking up 43.1%, 0.7 percentage point lower than that of the same period last year.

In terms of trade mode, the imports and exports of general trade reached 7.53 trillion yuan, up 12.4%, taking up 54.4% of the total value of the national foreign trade, with 0.4 percentage points higher than that in the same period last year.

In terms of the international market, China’s exports to the traditional markets such as the US, the EU and Japan grew by 15.4%, 13.3% and 8.8% respectively and those to the countries along the Belt and Road routes like Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and Malaysia also grew rapidly, with a growth of 36.8%, 20.4%, 20.2%, 17.4% and 16.2% respectively.

The official pointed out that China’s rapid growth in imports and exports in January-November mainly owes to the following reasons:

1. The international market picks up. The world economy has experienced mild and upward growth and the investment and trade has picked up. According to the prediction of the IMF, the global economic growth will reach 3.6%, and the GDP real growth in the developed economies such as the US, the Eurozone and Japan will reach 2.2%, 2.1% and 1.5% respectively, showing a synchronized growth. Recently, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has risen to 1600 points above, hitting the peak in the recent years. According to the latest statistics (in USD) of the WTO, the import growth of 65 main economies added up to 10.2% in January-September. Among these, the import growths of Japan, South Korea, those of the US and the EU were 9.6%, 20.1%, 6.4% and 7.3% respectively.

2. The stable and upward domestic economy drives the continuous growth of the imports. Since this year, our economy has maintained a forward and stable performance with good momentum for growth. The GDP has kept mid-to-high growth. In January-October, the fixed assets investment increased by 7.3% year on year, and in November, the Purchase Managers' Index (PMI) was 51.8. The stable and upward domestic economy has driven the demand for imports. According to the WTO’s statistics, China’s import growth is obviously faster than the global average and those of the big trading countries such as the US, Germany and Japan. In January-November, the import amounts and prices of 10 kinds of commodities like crude oil, iron ore and natural gas pushed up the total imports by 7.8 percentage points. Among these, the import amount increased by 0.7%-24.4% and the import price grew by 6.8%-63.7%.

3. The policy effect further appears. Since this year, MOFCOM, together with the departments and regions, has continued to pay special attention to the series of policies and documents issued by the State Council which aim to promote foreign trade development, practically reduce the enterprises’ burden and improve the business environment for them. The policy effect appears gradually.

4. The enterprises’ structure adjustment and power conversion accelerate. The business environment of new industry activities is gradually improving, and the growth rates of cross border e-commerce and market purchasing are obviously above the overall speed, which has become the new highlight of foreign trade growth. Many enterprises started from the supply side, sticking to innovation-driven method, accelerating power conversion, adjusting structure and fostering new foreign trade competitiveness as the core of technologies, brand, quality, service and standard. The enterprises' innovation ability and international competitiveness are strengthened, and the added value of products and brand influence are further enhanced.

Next, we will seriously carry out the guiding principles from the 19th CPC National Congress, and guided by President Xi Jinxing’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, we will firmly foster and carry out the new development ideas. We will deepen the supply-side structural reform in foreign trade area and vigorously implement the new innovation-driven method. We will continue to promote the “five optimizations” and “three constructions”, actively cultivate the new trade formats and modes, enhance the creative development of processing trade, implement more positive import policies and further improve the level of trade facilitation. We will consolidate and upgrade the traditional advantages while fostering new competitive advantages of foreign trade in order to promote the construction of a strong trade nation, play a more important role in promoting national economy and social development and make bigger contribution to the “Two Centenary Goals”.