General Administration Of Customs: The Foreign Trade Import And Export Operation Was Smooth And In Line With Expectations

According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs on August 8, China's total import and export value in the first seven months of this year was 23.55 trillion yuan, up 0.4% year on year. Among them, the export was 13.47 trillion yuan, up 1.5%; Imports reached 10.08 trillion yuan, down 1.1%; The trade surplus was 3.39 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.3%.

In July, China's total import and export value was 3.46 trillion yuan, down 8.3%. Among them, the export was 2.02 trillion yuan, down 9.2%; Import was 1.44 trillion yuan, down 6.9%; The trade surplus was 575.7 billion yuan, down 14.6%. Lv Daliang, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs and director of the Department of Statistics and Analysis, said that since the second quarter of this year, China's monthly import and export scale has remained stable at more than 3.4 trillion yuan. In July, China's import and export reached 3.46 trillion yuan, a high level in the same period of history. Compared with the same period in 2019, it increased by 25.7%, 4.5% higher than the average from 2020 to 2022. On the whole, China's foreign trade import and export operations were stable and in line with expectations, and the fundamentals of long-term improvement remained unchanged.

Since this year, China's foreign trade has faced a more severe and complex internal and external environment. Influenced by multiple factors such as weak external demand and geopolitics, the global trade growth trend has been weak, which has also brought great challenges to the smooth operation of China's foreign trade imports and exports.

Against this background, China's foreign trade operation adheres to the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability, showing three highlights.

The trade structure has been continuously optimized, and the proportion of import and export of general trade has increased. Since this year, China's economic operation has shown a trend of stabilizing and recovering, production and demand have gradually improved, and foreign trade imports and exports have been significantly stabilized. In the first seven months, China's general trade import and export amounted to 15.41 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.1%, accounting for 65.4% of China's total foreign trade, 1.1 percentage points higher than the same period last year. In addition, China's import and export by bonded logistics reached 3.04 trillion yuan, up 8.1%.

The import and export of domestic enterprises kept growing, and the market share of private enterprises continued to increase. In the first seven months, the import and export of private enterprises reached 12.46 trillion yuan, up 6.7%, accounting for 52.9% of China's total foreign trade, 3.1 percentage points higher than the same period last year. Among them, the export was 8.49 trillion yuan, up 7.3%, accounting for 63% of the total export value; Import was 3.97 trillion yuan, up 5.3%, accounting for 39.4% of the total import value. The growth rate of import and export and the proportion of trade of private enterprises have remained above half, playing a positive role in stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure of foreign trade. The import and export of state-owned enterprises reached 3.82 trillion yuan, up 0.8%, accounting for 16.2% of China's total foreign trade value. Over the same period, the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises reached 7.21 trillion yuan, down 9.4%, accounting for 30.6% of China's total foreign trade value.

In terms of export commodities, the export proportion of mechanical and electrical products is nearly 60%. In the first seven months, China exported 7.83 trillion yuan of electromechanical products, an increase of 4.4%, accounting for 58.1% of the total export value. Affected by the sluggish global electronic consumer market, China's exports of automatic data processing equipment and its parts, mobile phones and other commodities declined, but the export of automobiles increased by 118.5%, with a total export of 383.73 billion yuan. The import of bulk commodities showed a trend of mutual increase and decrease, among which the import volume of iron ore, crude oil and coal increased and the price decreased, while the import volume and price of natural gas and soybeans increased simultaneously.

China's exports to other RCEP member countries have maintained a steady growth. In June this year, with the official entry into force of RCEP for the Philippines, the world's largest free trade zone entered a new stage of full implementation. Xu Deshun, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the extensive application of tariff concessions, RCEP cumulative rules of origin and other rules will effectively reduce the cost of intra regional trade and help to form a comprehensive, mutually beneficial and high-level economic partnership.