General Administration of Customs on the foreign trade situation in the second half of the year

The State Council Information Office held a press conference to introduce imports and exports in the first half of 2021, reports the People's Daily Online. Talking about the outlook of foreign trade in the second half of the year, Li Kuiwen, Spokesman of General Administration of Customs and Director General of Statistics and Analysis Department, said at the press conference that in general, the current COVID-19 epidemic is still spreading in many parts of the world, the trend of the epidemic is complicated, and the development of foreign trade is still faced with many uncertain and unstable factors. Meanwhile, in the second half of last year, the import and export of China's foreign trade increased by nearly 27% compared with the first half of last year. Under the influence of a higher base, the year-on-year growth of import and export in the second half of this year may slow down, but the import and export are still expected to maintain a rapid growth for the whole year.

First of all, the domestic economy has been strengthened and improved, and market entities have become more dynamic, providing strong support for the sustained and steady growth of foreign trade. In the first half of the year, China's economy recovered steadily. Major economic indicators such as industrial added value, fixed asset investment and total retail sales of consumer goods continued to improve, and production demand continued to rebound. All this has laid a solid foundation for steady growth in foreign trade. In particular, the benefits of China's policy to stabilize foreign trade have continued to be released, the high-level platforms for opening up have grown rapidly, and the advantages of new forms and models of trade have become more prominent.

Second, the sustained recovery of the global economy has boosted external demand. In the first half of this year, a number of international organizations successively upgraded their forecasts for global economic growth this year. In April, for example, the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for global growth in 2021 to 6%. In June the World Bank raised its estimate to 5.6%. The global economic recovery has boosted international trade and China's exports.

In addition, a low base last year and price factors to some extent on the growth of foreign trade also played a role. In the first half of last year, China's import and export volume edged down by 3.3 percent year on year, only equivalent to the same period in 2018. Since the beginning of this year, the overall price of the international bulk commodity market has shown a rising trend. For example, the CRB index reflecting the international market bulk commodity price at the end of June has increased by more than 25% compared with the beginning of the year, and more than doubled compared with the lowest point in the first half of last year. Influenced by rising international commodity prices, China's import price index is estimated to be 108.5 in the first half of this year, and the contribution rate of price to import growth is 35.4%.