BEIJING, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) --- Local authorities in China have released their statistics of foreign trade in 2018, showing that the central and western regions maintained a growth rate higher than the national average growth in foreign trade, while the eastern China still took a lion's share in the foreign trade by trade volume.
--- Rapid growth of foreign trade in central and western regions
In 2018, the growth rate of foreign trade in 12 provinces and cities of western China was 16.1 percent, 6.4 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate, while that of the six provinces of central China was 11.4 percent, higher than national average growth rate by 1.7 percentage points.
To be specific, of the six provinces in central China, including Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan, Hunan saw its foreign trade growth rate reach 26.5 percent in 2018, higher than the national growth rate by 16.8 percentage points.
Total trade value of Shanxi Province was 136.99 billion yuan, an increase of 17.8 percent year on year, ranking second by the growth rate in the central region.
Shaanxi, Yunnan, Chongqing and other localities in western China also showed upbeat foreign trade performance in 2018.
For example, Shaanxi Province saw its foreign trade grow 29.25 percent in 2018 and Yunnan Province had the foreign trade value of nearly 200 billion yuan, up 24.7 percent year on year.
With the deepening of the Belt and Road construction, China's central and western regions have moved to the forefront of opening-up and foreign trade.
Driven by China-Europe freight train service, in 2018, Henan Province saw its import and export value with countries along the Belt and Road routes total 118.79 billion yuan, an increase of 23 percent year on year. To be specific, the province’s trade with 16 Central and Eastern Europe countries was 8.4 billion yuan, an increase of 81.3 percent.
The fast and smooth Eurasian continental bridge made the foreign trade easier, said Bai Ming, a researcher of Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation (CAITEC) .
--- Central and western regions in China tap potential in foreign trade
Generally speaking, the central and western regions in China enjoyed a growth rate above the national average growth in the foreign trade last year, as the regions have taken various measures to explore potential of foreign trade.
Henan Province issued an action plan to promote the transformation and development of the foreign trade. It asked the localities to increase support for the foreign trade enterprises, aiming to bring the number of the foreign trade enterprises each with the annual import and export value of more than 100 million yuan to 500.
Northwest China's Gansu Province established a foreign trade enterprise alliance to encourage local foreign trade enterprises to go global and explore the overseas market with the help of each other.
The rapid growth of foreign trade in the central and western regions will bring new development opportunities to these regions, and also help spread risks and promote balanced foreign trade development nationwide, said Bai.
--- New formats of foreign trade in eastern region
Eastern region in China maintained steady growth in the foreign trade and still topped in foreign trade volume.
For example, Guangdong Province recorded a new high of foreign trade in 2018, surpassing 7 trillion yuan for the first time, followed by Jiangsu Province and Shanghai municipality with the foreign trade standing at about 4.38 trillion yuan and 3.4 trillion yuan, respectively.
Besides, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have maintained a high growth rate and gotten large proportion in new business under the foreign trade.
Of the country's 134.7 billion yuan worth of goods via the cross-border e-commerce mode, Guangdong Province contributed more than 20 billion yuan, up 72 percent year on year, 22 percentage points higher than the national average growth. Zhejiang Province saw the foreign trade via the cross-border e-commerce stand at 27.56 billion yuan, up 44.3 percent year on year.
The eastern region also showed first-trial advantages in the area of market procurement and bonded areas goods trade.
Shandong's market procurement exports reached 7.34 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17 percent, while Guangdong's import and export value in the bonded areas amounted to 893.27 billion yuan in 2018.
The experience accumulated in the process of construction bonded areas will be useful for the construction of the free trade zones, which will help support China's high level opening-up and promote the growth of China's foreign trade, added Bai. (Edited by Bao Nuomin, baonuomin@xinhua.org)
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