China News Agency, Beijing, April 14 (Reporter Li Xiaoyu) While global trade is sluggish, trade between China and ASEAN is rising against the trend. The latest data released by the General Administration of Customs of China on the 14th showed that the total value of imports and exports between China and ASEAN reached 991.34 billion yuan (RMB, the same below) in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%. Among them, China's exports to ASEAN increased by 2.4%, and imports from ASEAN increased by 10.9%. ASEAN surpassed the EU and became China's largest trading partner.
In the first two months of this year, the trade volume between China and Europe has been overtaken by the trade volume between China and ASEAN. At that time, the gap was less than 40 billion yuan. Now it has expanded to 115.41 billion yuan.
In the first quarter, with the exception of ASEAN, the bilateral trade volume between China and the traditional trading partners such as the European Union, the United States, and Japan all declined. Among them, China-EU trade fell by 10.4% year-on-year; China and the United States fell by 18.3%; China and Japan fell by 8.1%.
At the press conference held on the same day, Li Kuiwen, a spokesman for the China Customs Administration, said that there are four reasons why ASEAN has become China's largest trading partner: China and ASEAN's import and export of integrated circuits have increased significantly, driving bilateral trade growth by 3.3 percentage points in the first quarter; Energy cooperation and trade speeded up, boosting bilateral trade growth by 1.7 percentage points; imports and exports with Vietnam and Malaysia increased by 18% and 7.6%, respectively, playing a "leading" role; the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area upgrade "Protocol" fully entered into force China's agricultural exports to ASEAN increased. In addition, Brexit also has a certain impact on China-EU trade volume.
Zhang Jianping, director of the Regional Economic Cooperation Research Center of the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with China News Service that China and ASEAN industries are getting closer and closer, and large-scale engineering contracting projects and industrial parks have also provided support for bilateral trade growth. If the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) can be successfully reached within this year, China-ASEAN trade will usher in a broader development prospect. (Finish)