A customs official on Monday cited three key factors behind China's high-quality trade development in 2024 and expressed his firm belief that the world's second largest economy will maintain stable growth in imports and exports this year.
Wang Lingjun, deputy head of the General Administration of Customs, told a press conference in Beijing that China consolidated its position as the world's largest trading nation in goods when in 2024, its total goods imports and exports reached 43.85 trillion yuan (about 6.1 trillion U.S. dollars), up five percent year on year.
Wang said a package of polices took effect in a coordinated way, giving a shot in the arm to the country's robust foreign trade growth last year.
"A new round of measures were swiftly introduced to stabilize growth of foreign trade, which effectively helped the country's foreign trade in the fourth quarter to hit a quarterly record high of 11.51 trillion yuan. The Q4 growth rate was 0.4 percentage points higher than that in the third quarter. In particular, China's imports and exports grew 6.8 percent in December to over 4 trillion yuan for the first time, a new monthly high," Wang said.
Wang went on to note that the upgraded manufacturing sector and the vast Chinese market inject more impetus into the high-quality development of China's foreign trade.
"We have a complete industrial system with technological innovations continuously fostering new quality productive forces and upgrading Made in China to provide more high-end, green and intelligent products to our trading partners," he said.
For example, smart home appliances drove China's home appliance exports to grow by 15.4 percent last year, he said.
Meanwhile, China has the world's most promising market. Last year, China imported nearly three billion tons of bulk commodities, over seven trillion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, and nearly 1.8 trillion yuan of consumer goods, meeting the diverse production and consumption needs, Wang noted.
The official stressed that the business entities forged ahead with bold steps in the past year, providing sustained impetus for the high-quality development of China's foreign trade.
Despite severe external challenges, China will continue to promote its high-quality trade development in the new year, he said.
"Major international economic organizations have predicted that global trade in goods will maintain growth this year. The fundamentals of the Chinese economy underpinned by a stable foundation, multiple advantages, strong resilience, and great potential stay unchanged, and the supporting factors for promoting the high-quality development of China's foreign trade remain solid," Wang said.
Official explains reasons behind China's high-quality trade development in 2024
