In The First Two Months, Zhejiang's Trade Slowed To The First Decline In US Exports In 11 Years.

Affected by many factors such as Spring Festival, snow disaster and the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, the opening of our province's foreign trade this year will be "first and then suppressed".

After a sharp rise in January, a significant drop occurred in February, and both the growth rate of imports and exports was lower than the national average.

Hangzhou customs statistics show that in the first two months, our province achieved a total import and export volume of US $30 billion 520 million, an increase of 17.2% over the same period last year, a growth rate of 33.8 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year, lower than the national average growth rate of 5.8 percentage points.

Among them, exports of US $22 billion 80 million, an increase of 13.7%, lower than the national average growth rate of 3.1 percentage points; imports 8 billion 440 million US dollars, an increase of 27.6%, lower than the national average growth rate of 3.3 percentage points.

It is noteworthy that the impact of the US subprime crisis on our foreign trade is beginning to show.

In the first 2 months, our province dropped 4 billion 530 million to US $4 billion 530 million in imports and exports, the first decline in 11 years after the US's foreign trade dropped 3.5% in January 1997.

Among them, exports to the United States amounted to 3 billion 870 million US dollars, down 4.2%, and imports of US $660 million, an increase of 24.8%.

At the same time, the dependence on the EU market deepened. In the first 2 months, our province increased 19.4% to the EU's imports and exports of 7 billion 340 million, accounting for 24% of the total import and export volume of the whole province, up 0.4 percentage points.

"The EU as the largest trading partner of our province is becoming more and more consolidated."

Hangzhou customs Analysis Division Qian Ping said that since the beginning of this year, the EU has lifted the quota restrictions on 10 categories of textiles imported from China since June 2005.

Affected by this, in the first 2 months, Zhejiang exported to the EU $1 billion 830 million of textiles and clothing, an increase of 25.6%, which also exceeded the average growth rate of the province's exports to the EU by 8.5 percentage points.

The development momentum of private enterprises is still strong.

In the first 2 months, the growth rate of imports and exports of private enterprises in the province was US $11 billion 430 million, and the growth rate of 29.2% was particularly prominent against the slowdown in the pace of foreign trade development in the province.

It accounts for 37.4% of the total import and export volume of the province and 57.5% of the total foreign trade growth.

Especially in terms of exports, the private enterprises in the whole province exported 1~2 9 billion 140 million US dollars, accounting for 41.4% of the total export volume of the province, and the contribution rate to the export growth of the province was as high as 71.1%.