Foreign trade situation remains “complicated and severe”
September 26, 2016 Category Foreign trade, Weekly
China’s foreign trade remains under considerable pressure as uncertainties mount, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said, describing the current situation as “complicated and severe.” Although August trade data suggests an improving trend, China should not be “blindly optimistic” on its outlook, and further measures need to be taken to stabilize growth, MOFCOM Spokesman Shen Danyang said. China’s foreign trade improved markedly in August due to stronger domestic and external demand. Yuan-denominated exports rose 5.9% year-on-year, while imports increased 10.8%. But in the first eight months of the year, foreign trade was down 1.8% from a year earlier, with exports dropping 1% and imports falling 2.9%. The weak performance comes against a backdrop of flagging trade growth worldwide. Last year was the fourth-consecutive year that global trade growth was below GDP growth, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Protectionism is also on the rise. Shen said that in the first eight months of the year, China was subject to 85 trade remedy probes, an increase of 49% year-on-year. The probes involved trade of USD10.32 billion, an increase of 94% year-on-year. Criticism that China’s investment environment for foreign businesses had worsened was rejected by the Ministry of Commerce as biased. China’s foreign service trade amounted to CNY3.01 trillion during the first seven months of the year, up 24.6% year-on-year. The service trade accounted for 18.2% of the country’s total imports and exports in the January-July period, 2.8 percentage points higher than in 2015. Exports of telecommunications, computing and information services grew by 20.8% to CNY103.96 billion during the first seven months. China’s foreign service trade volume grew from USD362.4 billion in 2011 to USD713 billion in 2015, the Shanghai Daily reports.
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