Foreign trade set to improve in second half

Domestic enterprises accelerate pace of innovation amid friction between China, US

The structure of China's foreign trade will continue to improve with more flexibility in the second half of this year due to its institutional, industrial and market advantages, officials and experts said on Thursday.

Li Kuiwen, a spokesman for the General Administration of Customs' Department of Statistics, said China has not only increased its market share with major economies such as the European Union this year, but its trade volume with emerging markets has also notably surged.

Li's remark came after the administration announced earlier on Thursday that China's foreign trade grew 4.2 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of the year to 17.41 trillion yuan ($2.47 trillion).

The EU remained China's largest trading partner between January and July, with bilateral trade volume up 10.8 percent year-on-year to 2.72 trillion yuan, followed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, up 11.3 percent to 2.35 trillion yuan, and the United States, down 8.1 percent to 2.1 trillion yuan.

To offset the negative impact caused by the Sino-US trade dispute, potential for trade cooperation between China and economies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative such as ASEAN, Russia and Italy has been further unleashed this year, said Chen Bin, executive vice-president of the China Machinery Industry Federation.

Chen said the trade dispute between China and the US has prompted Chinese enterprises to accelerate their pace of innovation to break external restrictions in many fields such as semiconductors and new materials, as well as expand their global presence at a notable pace.

Yan Min, a division head at the State Information Center's Department of Economic Forecasting, said China's diversified trade development — exploring new markets and generating fresh demand — has become a driving force for its foreign trade expansion and created room for the country to maintain stable trade growth.