Provinces cut trade growth targets (2)

Guangdong was the only province among the five major exporters that achieved its trade target last year.

Trade in Guangdong grew 7.7 percent year-on-year in 2012, exceeding the target of 7.5 percent.

The five provinces accounted for 58 percent of the country's total trade in 2012.

"The country's fast trade growth, at an annual average of 20 percent in the past decade, is over," said Jin Baisong, deputy director of the Department of China's Foreign Trade Studies at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

China's foreign trade in 2012 rose by 6.2 percent from a year earlier, missing its annual growth target of 10 percent,

The trade situation in 2013 is still difficult and the country's target in 2013 is "to try to keep foreign trade growing at roughly the same level as GDP growth," Shen Danyang, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said earlier this month.

China's GDP growth slowed to 7.8 percent year-on-year in 2012 and many economists and research institutes have forecast that growth in 2013 will be around 7.5 percent.

"Downgrading the trade growth targets by major exporters in the country is not necessarily a bad development. It gives China more drive and pressure to move away from its reliance on trade and toward domestic consumption for economic growth," Jin said.