Private enterprises drive China's foreign trade growth in first four months

China's foreign trade performance in the first four months of this year demonstrated robust vitality, with a notable increase in the number of trading entities and a significant contribution from private enterprises.

In the first four months, the number of foreign trade entities with actual import and export performances grew 8.6 percent year on year, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Thursday.

Among them, the number of private enterprises rose 10.1 percent and their import and export volume increased by 10.7 percent, accounting for 54.6 percent of China's foreign trade, rising 2.5 percentage points over the same period last year, official data showed.

The number of foreign-invested enterprises grew 1.2 percent, according to the data.

"Since the beginning of this year, the dividends of a series of policy measures to stabilize foreign trade have continued to be released, providing support for enterprises to expand markets, strengthen confidence, and increase vitality. The customs authorities have been actively assisting businesses. Last month, for AEO, or the Authorized Economic Operator, the customs has introduced 17 facilitation measures in four aspects to help them further reduce costs and increase benefits," said Lyu Daliang, director of the GAC Statistical Analysis Department.

A time-honored household appliance manufacturer in Qingdao City of east China's Shandong Province has been focusing on the development of environment-friendly and intelligent appliances and recently shipped a batch of newly-developed induction cookers to South Africa.

In addition to product standards and specifications and voltage requirements, many countries have established access certification requirements or regulations for aspects including the safety and energy efficiency of the home appliances.

"We are carrying out targeted notifications, evaluations and special trade attention to assist enterprises in overcoming foreign technical trade barriers and enhancing their market competitiveness," said Qiu Mingming, a customs officer of Qingdao Customs.

Private enterprises drive China's foreign trade growth in first four months

China completed a field test of vertical detection platforms on unmanned vehicles on the northern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau on Sunday.

The trial is part of China's ongoing second comprehensive scientific expedition on the plateau beginning in August 2017.

During the experiment, two unmanned vehicles carrying detection platforms departed from the cities of Golmud and Mangya, which are approximately 600 kilometers apart, and traveled towards each other. After meeting each other, they continued their journey and reached Mangya and Golmud, respectively.

The detection platforms are equipped with devices such as microwave radiometers and millimeter-wave cloud radars, carrying out all-weather observations of the three-dimensional vertical structure of the atmosphere that can record the real-time data on vertical atmospheric temperature, relative humidity, water vapor density profiles, and liquid water profiles.

After acquiring the data, the detection platforms undergo quality control tests by comparing the data with observations from the upper-air sounding stations in Golmud and Mangya on the same day.

"The function of the unmanned vehicles has proven to be effective. Additionally, we have successfully accomplished the task of collecting data for the entire vertical detection system," said Xu Xiangde, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and one of the task directors of the second comprehensive scientific expedition.

The success of the field test helps researchers to monitor meteorological information in high-altitude and remote areas such as plateaus, deserts, and remote urban regions.

China completes vertical detection field test with unmanned vehicles on Qinghai-Xizang Plateau