China's Foreign Trade Forecast to Grow 8 PercentChina's foreign trade may still grow eight percent this year despite an economic slowdown in the United States and Japan, foreign trade experts predicted Thursday.The group of experts from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and the Academy of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation made the forecast in their spring edition of "China's Foreign Trade," released Thursday. World economic and trade flow has evidently slowed down this year, and the growth rate of the world economy will be lower than that of last year, they said. That will result in less demand on the world market. But, the domestic market of China will remain vigorous, they said. As China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8.1 percent in the first quarter of the year, they predicted that domestic investment and consumption will continue to grow, and the GDP growth for the whole year will be stable. As a result, domestic market demand will prompt more imports instead. The growth of imports will be much higher than exports this year, they said. China's foreign trade volume last year reached 474.3 billion US dollars, up 31.5 percent. Considering that benchmark, they said, this year's foreign trade will be much lower, probably around eight percent. |
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