BEIJING: China’s Belt and Road Initiative is designed to make Chinese and partner economies more competitive and narrow development gaps between landlocked countries and coastal regions. Along with supply-side reform within China, this year’s trade results demonstrate the benefits China is reaping, despite “volatile” times internationally.
In the first two months of 2018, the total value of China’s imports and exports reached 4,515.8 billion yuan ($713 billion), a year-on-year increase of 16.7 percent. The total value of exports was 2,439 billion yuan ($385 billion), up by 18.0 percent; and the value of imports was 2,077 billion yuan ($328 billion), up by 15.2 percent. This gave a trade surplus of 362 billion yuan ($57 billion).
Trade among China and countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative amounted to 7.4 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) in 2017, increasing 17.8 percent year-on-year, and free trade developments saw China signing agreements with Georgia and the Maldives and officially launching free trade negotiations with Moldova and Mauritius.
State media attributes China’s solid performance this year to President Xi Jinping’s philosophy of supply-side structural reform and the promotion of high-quality development. This ensured the value of the nation’s industry was up by 7.2 percent year-on-year in real terms in the first two months of the year. The value of the mining industry was up by 1.6 percent year-on-year; manufacturing was up by 7.0 percent.
China continues to work toward building major international corridors, streamlining customs clearance in markets related with the Belt and Road Initiative and expanding industrial capacity cooperation with other countries. For example, every week, three trains carry goods between Chongqing and the Beibu Gulf in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, where the cargo is loaded onto ships bound for Singapore. The new Chongqing-Guangxi-Singapore route was opened in September to reduce logistics costs and promote trade with Southeast Asian countries under the Belt and Road Initiative.
