China’s Foreign Trade Shows Steady Growth and Momentum in 2023
The latest report from “Economic Information Daily” revealed that China’s foreign trade achieved steady growth in 2023, with a total import and export value of 41.76 trillion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 0.2%. The result surpassed expectations and demonstrated the country’s commitment to promoting stability and improving the quality of trade.
Industry insiders believe that China’s foreign trade has shown resilience in the face of weak global economic recovery and sluggish trade performance. The country’s import and export scale has continued to increase steadily while the quality of development has improved, boosting overall confidence. Furthermore, new growth points such as the “three new things”, emerging markets, and new business formats are being cultivated and expanded, providing further momentum for the stabilization and improvement of foreign trade.
While the growth rate of exports has slowed down compared to previous years, China’s exports in 2023 reached a new high, demonstrating reasonable growth in volume and maintaining overall stability in share. The World Trade Organization (WTO) predicts that China’s export market share will remain at a high level of around 14% in 2023.
Zhuang Rui, executive director of the Institute of International Economics at the University of International Business and Economics, praised China’s foreign trade performance as “forging ahead”. She noted that the country has overcome numerous challenges and achieved positive growth, maintaining its global export share at a high level, all while steadily increasing trade scale and optimizing its structure.
The report also highlighted several positive trends in China’s foreign trade in 2023, including the growth of “three new” products, the increase in cross-border e-commerce imports and exports, the rise in foreign trade entities, and the diversification of trading partners.
In response to the strengthening of policies and the accumulation of advantages, the confidence of foreign trade companies has improved. The Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2023 proposed to accelerate the cultivation of new foreign trade momentum, consolidate basic foreign trade and foreign investment, and expand intermediate goods trade, service trade, digital trade, and cross-border e-commerce exports.
With the implementation of various policies, including expanding cross-border e-commerce exports and improving customs clearance, taxation, and foreign exchange policies, the Ministry of Commerce aims to support foreign trade companies, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.
Looking ahead, experts believe that with multi-pronged policies to support foreign trade and cultivate new momentum, China’s foreign trade is expected to achieve higher quality development in the future. The country’s high-level opening up and broader multilateral and bilateral economic and trade cooperation are likely to provide further development opportunities for China’s foreign trade in the coming years.