China will take the initiative to expand imports and foster strong growth drivers for the global economy, Vice Premier He Lifeng said via video link during the opening ceremony of the 133rd China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, held semiannually in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. In the meantime, greater support will be provided to help Chinese firms complete technological transformation and raise the quality of exports to international standards, he said, adding that industrial upgrading will optimize China’s foreign trade structure and enhance efficiency to share more affordable and higher-quality Chinese products with customers worldwide.
Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen noted that China’s foreign trade got off to a steady start in the first quarter, sending a positive signal that the supply capacity of China’s foreign trade has been fully recovering. At the same time, China’s demand for overseas products is also gradually picking up. Nearly 35,000 enterprises from home and abroad will attend the trade fair, 9,000 of which are first-timers. China’s private businesses, in particular, make up the vast bulk of the exhibitors, accounting for 90.1% of the total. The spring session of the Canton Fair started on April 15 and will run till May 5.
The fair resumes all on-site activities after being held largely online since 2020 due to Covid-19, but online services will remain in place on a sustained basis. Buyers from 226 countries and regions in both developed and emerging markets have registered for both offline and online exhibitions. About 53 leading multinationals, including U.S. firm Walmart, French retailer Auchan, German discounter Lidl and Abu Dhabi-headquartered supermarket chain Lulu, have confirmed they will attend the fair. This year’s event is the largest since being first held in 1957, in terms of both the venue acreage and the number of global participants. The exhibition area is expanded from 1.18 million square meters to 1.5 million sq m this year to house nearly 70,000 booths for import and export companies.
China's exports grew by 23.4% year-on-year in yuan-denominated terms in March to CNY2.15 trillion, which is seen by analysts as a “very pleasant surprise” amid the current complex and volatile international business environment, underscoring the resilience of the Chinese economy. Exports soared 48.4% month-on-month, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC). In U.S. dollar-denominated terms, March exports jumped 14.8% year-on-year.
“The high-speed growth rate of China's exports is totally unexpected, which is a very pleasant surprise,” Cao Heping, Economist at Peking University, told the Global Times. This “demonstrates that the U.S.-led decoupling push or geopolitical tensions couldn't reduce Western reliance on Chinese products. Chinese people have blazed a new path of supplying the world with high-tech, high-quality products,” Cao said. In the first three months of 2023, exports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells increased 66.9% year-on-year, driving up the country's overall exports by 2 percentage points, according to GAC.
Foreign trade by private firms maintained fast growth in the first quarter, jumping 14.4% year-on-year to CNY5.18 trillion, accounting for 52.4% of the total trade volume. Imports and exports in the country's less-developed central and western regions grew by 12.6% year-on-year in Q1 to hit a record high of CNY1.84 trillion. In the first quarter, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remained China's largest trading partner with a trade volume of CNY1.56 trillion, up 16.1% year-on-year. Foreign trade with the EU – China's second-largest trading partner – inched up 2% to CNY1.34 trillion, while trade between China and the U.S. fell 6.2% year-on-year to CNY1.11 trillion. In the same period, China's trade with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partners grew by 16.8% year-on-year, and that with other RCEP members increased 7.3% year-on-year.
China's trade with Russia increased by 38.7% in Q1 from a year earlier, far outpacing the growth of China's total trade. With energy cooperation taking up more than 40% of bilateral commodity trade and playing a pivotal role, and the promotion of local currency settlement accelerating, it is expected that bilateral trade will cross the USD200 billion threshold this year. China's shipments to Russia rose 47.1% year-on-year to USD24.07 billion, while shipments from Russia were up 32.6% to USD29.77 billion. In March alone, total bilateral trade reached USD20.07 billion, up 77% on a yearly basis, accelerating from 36.4% growth in the first two months, Chinese customs data showed. China purchased more than 6.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas and 86.25 million tons of crude oil from Russia in 2022.
China's imports dropped by 1.4% year-on-year to USD227.4 billion in dollar-denominated terms in the first quarter. However, the country's March imports still increased 15.3% from February due to the continuous rise in China's domestic demand. Zhou Maohua, Economist at Everbright Bank, forecasted that China's overall foreign trade will grow at a “moderate rate” this year on the back of continuous optimization of the country's foreign trade structure and stable growth in new energy products. “China's domestic economic recovery, along with positive fiscal policies to stimulate consumption and the rebound of the real estate sector will boost imports of goods and services,” Zhou said.
China is actively advancing its accession to the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said at the second Pearl River International Trade Forum during the Canton Fair. On DEPA, Wang said that China is negotiating rules on e-commerce, cross-border paperless trade and cross-border data flow, as well as specific project cooperation, including the mutual recognition of digital certificates, electronic contracts and electronic documents. Jiang Xiaojuan, Professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said at the forum that China has a very strong digital competitiveness, and “we should actively promote digital globalization among countries and international organizations.” The Global Trade Digitalization Pilot Zone is to be set up in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
