China News Service, October 13th. The State Council Information Office today held a press conference on the import and export situation in the first three quarters of 2021. Li Kuiwen, spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs and Director of the Statistical Analysis Department, introduced the import and export situation in the first three quarters of 2021.

Li Kuiwen revealed that according to customs statistics, the total value of my country's imports and exports of goods trade in the first three quarters was 28.33 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.7% over the same period last year.

Data map: The picture shows the container terminal of Xiuying Port in Haikou.

Photo by Luo Yunfei

　　Among them, exports were 15.55 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.7%; imports were 12.78 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.6%.

Compared with the same period in 2019, my country's foreign trade imports and exports, exports, and imports increased by 23.4%, 24.5% and 22% respectively.

Specific analysis has the following six characteristics:

　　First, the scale of imports and exports rose quarter by quarter, and the growth rate gradually declined.

In terms of quarters, the total value of imports and exports in the first, second, and third quarters of this year was 8.51 trillion, 9.59 trillion, and 10.23 trillion, respectively, representing a year-on-year increase of 29.7%, 25.2% and 15.2%.

The growth rate showed a trend of declining quarter by quarter.

On a monthly basis, imports and exports in September increased by 15.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate dropped by 3.5 percentage points from August.

　　The second is to maintain growth in imports and exports with major trading partners.

In the first three quarters, my country's imports and exports to ASEAN were 4.08 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.1%.

ASEAN continues to maintain its position as my country's largest trading partner, accounting for 14.4% of my country's total foreign trade value.

In the same period, imports and exports to the EU, the United States, Japan and South Korea were 3.88 trillion, 3.52 trillion, 1.78 trillion and 1.7 trillion yuan respectively, an increase of 20.5%, 24.9%, 11.2% and 17.3% respectively.

In addition, my country's imports and exports to countries along the “Belt and Road” and RCEP trading partners increased by 23.4% and 19.3% respectively.

　　The third is the increase in the proportion of general trade imports and exports.

In the first three quarters, my country's general trade import and export was 17.51 ​​trillion yuan, an increase of 25.6%, accounting for 61.8% of my country's total foreign trade value, an increase of 1.4 percentage points over the same period last year; of which, exports were 9.47 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.5%; imports were 8.04 Trillion yuan, an increase of 25.7%.

In the same period, the import and export of processing trade was 6.07 trillion yuan, an increase of 12.7%, accounting for 21.4%.

　　Fourth, the vitality of foreign trade business entities has increased.

In the first three quarters of this year, my country's enterprises with actual import and export performance reached 526,700, an increase of 34,000 compared with the same period last year.

Among them, the import and export of private enterprises was 13.65 trillion yuan, an increase of 28.5%, accounting for 48.2% of my country's total foreign trade value.

In the same period, the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises was 10.22 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.7%; the import and export of state-owned enterprises was 4.35 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.1%.

　　Fifth, exports of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products have both increased.

In the first three quarters, my country exported 9.15 trillion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, an increase of 23%, which was 0.3 percentage points higher than the overall export growth rate and accounted for 58.8% of the total export value.

Among them, automatic data processing equipment and its parts, mobile phones, and automobiles increased by 12%, 14.4%, and 107%, respectively.

In the same period, exports of labor-intensive products increased by 9.5%; pharmaceutical materials and medicines increased by 108%.

　　Sixth, the import volume of some bulk commodities increased in price.

In the first three quarters, the customs-supervised import and export cargo volume was 3.74 billion tons, an increase of 3%, of which imports were 2.43 billion tons, a decrease of 0.5%.

Specifically, my country imported 842 million tons of iron ore, a decrease of 3%, and the average price was 1159.8 yuan per ton, an increase of 67.5%; crude oil was 387 million tons, a decrease of 6.8%, and the average price was 3082.5 yuan per ton, an increase of 32.8%; natural gas was 8,985. 10,000 tons, an increase of 22.2%, an average price of 2491.9 yuan per ton, an increase of 5.1%; soybeans, 73.973 million tons, a decrease of 0.7%, an average price of 3509.8 yuan per ton, an increase of 29.4%; copper 4.019 million tons, a decrease of 19.5%, an average price per ton Tons was 60,400 yuan, an increase of 37.9%.

　　Li Kuiwen said that, on the whole, the basis for the steady and quality increase in my country’s foreign trade volume has been further consolidated this year. At the same time, we must also see that the global epidemic is fluctuating, the world economy is recovering hard, the external environment is becoming more complex and severe, and my country’s foreign trade development is facing difficulties. There are still many factors of stability and uncertainty.

The Customs will coordinate the promotion of port epidemic prevention and control and promote the steady growth of foreign trade, strengthen supervision and optimization services, accelerate the creation of a market-oriented, legalized, and international port business environment, and promote high-quality development and high-level opening of foreign trade.