China's foreign trade volume in January rises higher

The latest figures from China's General Administration of Customs have shown that China's foreign trade volume increased in January 2018, with both imports and exports rising higher than expectations.

The country's foreign trade volume rose 16.2% year on year in the first month of 2018 to 2.51 trillion yuan, or nearly 400 billion U.S. dollars.

China's exports increased 6% to 1.32 trillion yuan, while imports surged 30.2% to 1.19 trillion yuan.

Wang Jun, a chief economist with Zhongyuan Bank, explained some of the factors that contributed to the increase.

"First of all, there are seasonal factors such as the date of the Spring Festival, as the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2017 fell in January; while this year, it falls in February. Secondly, China's currency has been strengthening over the past a few months. Thirdly, the Chinese economy has made further progress on the basis of stability over the past year. All of these factors have led to the increase of imports and exports," said Wang.

China's general trade expanded to nearly 1.5 trillion yuan in January, accounting for 58.6% of total foreign trade.

Bai Ming is a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under China's Ministry of Commerce.

He said the recent growth reflects the transformation of China's foreign trade.

"Although China's exports surged 6% last month, the general trade exports rose 7.1%. This is partly due to our policies to transform and upgrade the country's foreign trade, as more independent brand and intellectual property rights are allowed to be involved in general trade," said Bai.

The European Union, the United States, and ASEAN are China's top three trading partners, although trade with countries along the Belt and Road rose higher than the general level of trade growth.

However, China's trade surplus in January shrank 59.7% to 135.8 billion yuan.

Wang Jun said the country has been pursuing balanced foreign trade for years.

"The remarkable performance concerning China's imports in the first month of the year, on one hand, reflects the strong domestic demand. On the other hand, they are partly the results of China's pursuit of a balanced trade for years. As is known to all, China will host the first China International Import Expo this year, which expresses the country's willingness to share the fruitful results from its economic growth with the world," said Wang.

Exports of machinery, electronics, and home appliances continued to expand in January, while the volume of steel exports dropped.

Chinese private enterprises also played a bigger role in trade last month, with their share of trade edging up 0.2 percentage points compared with January 2016.