Policy steps to sustain China trade momentum

BEIJING: China will roll out a raft of well-focused policy steps to sustain the momentum of its foreign trade, which has been resilient and stable in the first eight months of the year despite sluggish global economic and trade growth, says the Commerce Ministry.

“The country will fine-tune its policy mix to address the pressing concerns facing enterprises. Targeted measures to advance the development of processing trade and shore up the growth of services trade and digital trade, for instance, will be introduced,” said He Yadong, a spokesman of the ministry, at a news conference last Thursday.

Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the China Association of Policy Science’s Economic Policy Committee in Beijing, said the country should make greater efforts to diversify its export basket, in a bid to mitigate risks, capitalise on emerging opportunities and sustain long-term growth.

Rising geopolitical tensions, stubbornly high inflation abroad and weakening global demand have dealt a blow to global trade in goods, with China being no exception. Therefore, China should foster new drivers of trade growth, as highlighted by services trade and digital trade, since they boast huge potential to tap into, Xu said.

China’s foreign trade, affected by a combination of economic and non-economic factors, has been under constant strain and encountered a severe and complex situation in recent months. Faced with risks and challenges, foreign trade enterprises have risen to the occasion by actively exploring international markets, He said.

Furthermore, the Chinese government has put in place stronger and more effective policies to stabilise foreign trade, which helped remove bottlenecks at a faster pace, scale up product competitiveness and contribute to sustained growth in exports, He said.

With such efforts, China’s foreign trade has withstood various pressures, demonstrating strong resilience and maintaining generally stable operations, as evidenced by positive signs in recent Customs data, He said.

China’s exports increased 0.8% year-on-year to 15.47 trillion yuan in the first eight months. Exports grew 1.2% month-on-month in August, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs. — China Daily/ANN