China News Service, July 14th, Li Kuiwen, spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs and director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, said today that according to customs statistics, foreign trade imports and exports in the first half of the year were better than expected. From a monthly perspective, since April, exports have achieved positive growth for three consecutive months. In June, imports and exports increased by 5.1% year-on-year, of which exports increased by 4.3% and imports increased by 6.2%.
Data map: Import and export containers. China News Agency reporter Tuobo
The State Development Office held a press conference on the 14th. Li Kuiwen introduced the import and export situation in the first half of 2020. He pointed out that since this year, my country has made overall plans to promote epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, solidly carry out the "six stability" work, fully implement the "six guarantees" task, and foreign trade imports and exports are better than expected. In the first half of this year, my country's foreign trade imports and exports mainly have the following seven characteristics:
First, foreign trade imports and exports in the first half of the year were better than expected. Both exports and imports achieved positive growth in June. From a quarterly perspective, after experiencing shocks in the first quarter, imports and exports stabilized in the second quarter. In the second quarter of this year, my country's foreign trade imports and exports reached 7.67 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.2%, and the decrease was 6.3 percentage points narrower than the first quarter. From a monthly perspective, since April, exports have achieved positive growth for three consecutive months. In June, imports and exports increased by 5.1% year-on-year, of which exports increased by 4.3% and imports increased by 6.2%.
Secondly, the import and export of private enterprises are growing against the trend, and their role in the steady growth of foreign trade is more prominent. In the first half of the year, the import and export of private enterprises, the largest foreign trade entity, was 6.42 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.9%, accounting for 45.1% of my country's total foreign trade value, an increase of 3.5 percentage points over the same period last year. Among them, exports were 4.14 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.2%, accounting for 53.7% of the total export value; imports were 2.28 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.1%, accounting for 34.9% of the total import value. During the same period, foreign-invested enterprises imported and exported 5.55 trillion yuan, accounting for 39%. The import and export of state-owned enterprises was 2.22 trillion yuan, accounting for 15.6%.
The third is the continued growth of imports and exports to ASEAN. ASEAN has become my country's largest trading partner. In the first half of the year, China’s imports and exports to ASEAN were 2.09 trillion yuan, up 5.6%, accounting for 14.7% of China’s total foreign trade; imports and exports to the EU were 1.99 trillion yuan, down 1.8%; imports and exports to the US were 1.64 trillion yuan, down 6.6 %. In addition, my country's imports and exports to countries along the "Belt and Road" reached 4.2 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.9%, a decrease of 2.3 percentage points lower than the overall.
Fourth, the proportion of general trade imports and exports has increased, and the structure of trade methods has been continuously optimized. In the first half of the year, my country’s general trade imports and exports reached 8.55 trillion yuan, down 2.6%, accounting for 60.1% of my country’s total foreign trade, up 0.4 percentage points from the same period last year. Among them, exports were 4.56 trillion yuan, down 2%; imports were 3.99 trillion yuan, down 3.2%. Import and export of processing trade was 3.36 trillion yuan, down 8%, accounting for 23.6%.
Fifth, the import and export of the central and western regions maintained growth, and the domestic regional distribution was more balanced. In the first half of the year, the import and export of foreign trade in eastern my country was 11.39 trillion yuan, a decrease of 4.7%, and the import and export of central and western regions was 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.7%, accounting for 16.7% of my country's total foreign trade value, and the proportion increased by 1.4 percentage points.
Sixth, the export of epidemic prevention materials and "house economy" products grew rapidly, and the decline in exports of electromechanical products and labor-intensive products was lower than the overall decline. In the first half of the year, the export of textiles including masks increased by 32.4%, the export of medical materials and drugs, medical instruments and devices increased by 23.6% and 46.4% respectively, and the increase in the consumption of the "household economy" led the export of notebook computers and mobile phones to increase by 9.1% and 0.2 respectively %. In the same period, my country's exports of electromechanical products were 4.52 trillion yuan, down 2.3%, accounting for 58.6% of the total export value; exports of seven categories of labor-intensive products, such as textiles and clothing, were 1.5 trillion yuan, down 1.4%, accounting for 19.4%.
Seventh, the import and export freight volume increased, and the import volume of major commodities and key agricultural products increased. In the first half of the year, customs supervision of import and export freight volume was 2.33 billion tons, an increase of 6.6%. Among them, imports were 1.56 billion tons, an increase of 8.3%. In terms of major commodities, imported iron ore sand was 547 million tons, an increase of 9.6%; imported crude oil was 269 million tons, an increase of 9.9%; imported coal was 174 million tons, an increase of 12.7%; imported natural gas was 48.359 million tons, an increase of 3.3%. During the same period, imports of some agricultural products increased, of which 45.044 million tons of soybeans were imported, an increase of 17.9%; 2.123 million tons of pork were imported, an increase of 1.4 times; and beef imports were 997,000 tons, an increase of 42.9%.
Li Kuiwen said that at present, the world impacted by the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic is undergoing profound changes. The world economy is in deep recession, international trade and investment have shrunk dramatically, and the external environment for my country's foreign trade development is severe and complex. Customs will develop confidence, actively respond to difficult challenges, go all out to do a good job in port epidemic prevention and control and promote stable growth of foreign trade, further optimize the port business environment, help companies develop international markets, strive to stabilize the basic foreign trade in China, and promote foreign trade Promote stability and improve quality, and make greater contributions to the completion of the annual economic and social development goals and tasks.