Chinese Foreign Trade for January-August Rises 17.1% Year-on-Year

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The latest official data points to a sizeable rise in Chinese foreign trade for the first eight months of 2017.

Data from China’s General Administration of Customs indicates that the total value of Chinese foreign trade was 17.83 trillion yuan for the January – August period, for an increase of 17.1% compared to the same period last year.

Total Chinese exports were 9.85 trillion yuan, for a year-on-year increase of 13%, while imports were 7.98 trillion yuan, for an increase of 22.5%.

China’s trade surplus stood at 1.87 trillion yuan, marking a contraction of 15.1%.

Foreign trade with the European Union saw a year-on-year increase of 16.1% to reach 2.71 trillion yuan, while trade between China and the US saw an increase of 19.1% to reach 2.53 trillion yuan.

Trade with ASEAN and Japan increased by 19.9% and 15.4% year-on-year to reach 2.2 trillion yuan and 1.42 trillion yuan respectively.

Foreign trade by private enterprise increased by 18.3% year-on-year for the January-to-August period, reaching 6.87 trillion yuan in total. It accounted for 38.5% of all Chinese foreign trade during the period, rising 0.4 percentage points compared to the same period last year.

Private enterprise exports saw an increase of 15.4% to reach 4.62 trillion yuan, comprising 46.9% of the total, while private enterprise imports rose 24.6% year-on-year to 4.62 trillion yuan, comprising 28.1% of the total export amount.

Foreign-invested enterprises accounted for 7.92 trillion yuan in Chinese foreign trade, for a year-on-year increase of 13.6%, accounting for 44.4% of the total.

Foreign-invested enterprise exports rose 10.9% year-on-year to 4.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 42.6% of the total, while imports were 3.72 trillion yuan, for an increase of 16.9% to account for 46.6% of the total.

State-owned enterprises saw an increase in foreign trade of 24.3% to reach 2.99 trillion yuan, accounting for 16.7% of the total.

Electrical and mechanical goods and traditional labour-intensive products remain the mainstay of China’s export sector.

For the first eight months of 2017 Chinese exports of electrical and mechanical goods saw an increase of 13.4% compared to the same period last year, reaching 5.63 trillion yuan in total and accounting for 57.1% of total exports.