China's foreign trade expands 2.4% in first 11 months

China's foreign trade registered steady growth in the first 11 months of 2019 by expanding 2.4% year on year, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Sunday.

Photo taken on Oct. 30, 2019 shows the Taicang Port in east China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/Xinhua]

During the period, the total foreign trade volume reached 28.5 trillion yuan (US$4.14 trillion).

Exports climbed 4.5% year on year to 15.55 trillion yuan, while imports hit 12.95 trillion yuan, the data showed.

China saw its trade surplus widen by 34.9% year on year to 2.6 trillion yuan during the period.

In November, China's foreign trade amounted to 2.86 trillion yuan, up 1.8% year on year.

Despite global economic and trade slowdown, China's foreign trade still maintained stable growth this year, showing the resilience of the Chinese economy, said Li Kuiwen, director of the GAC's statistics and analysis department.

Imports gained 2.5% to 1.29 trillion yuan last month, compared with a 3.5% decline in October.

"The improving import data in November reflected a pickup in domestic demand," Li added.

China's trade with the EU and ASEAN expanded, while trade with countries along the Belt and Road reported faster growth than the overall average.

Trade with the Belt and Road countries rose 9.9% to 8.35 trillion yuan from January to November, accounting for 29.3% of the total trade.

Private companies, already the primary body of China's foreign trade, continued to play an even bigger part with foreign trade volume of 12.12 trillion yuan in the first 11 months, up 10.4% year on year.

Exports of machinery and electronic products grew 4% to reach 9.09 trillion yuan during the first 11 months, accounting for 58.4% of the country's total exports.

Exports of six categories of labor-intensive goods including footwear, toys and suitcases rose 5.7% to 2.99 trillion yuan during the period.

Sunday's data also showed that China's crude oil imports climbed 10.5% to 462 million tonnes during the period, while imports of coal and natural gas increased by 10.2% and 7.4%, respectively. The soybean imports, however, fell 4.1% to 78.97 million tonnes.

The government has repeatedly pledged efforts to keep foreign trade stable. The State Council confirmed 12 measures in an executive meeting on Oct. 23 to optimize forex management and promote cross-border trade and investment facilitation, including expanding the pilot project to facilitate forex receipts and payments.