Majority of Chinese regions post foreign trade growth in H1

A worker transports cargo with a forklift at the Urumqi International Land Port Area in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in July. CAI ZENGLE/FOR CHINA DAILY

Nineteen among China's 31 provincial-level regions registered positive foreign trade growth in the first half of this year, reported financial news outlet Yicai on Friday.

Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Inner Mongolia autonomous region reported a foreign trade growth at 65.2, 43.2 and 32.9 percent, respectively, with the speed of rise ranking in top three in the country, the report said.

The overall volume of Xinjiang's foreign trade reached 149.62 billion yuan ($20.9 billion) in H1, and the total import and export volume of Guangxi and Inner Mongolia was 339.07 billion yuan and 90.32 billion yuan, respectively, according to the report.

According to the General Administration of Customs, the overall volume of China's trade in goods was 20.1 trillion yuan in the first half, up by 2.1 percent year-on-year. The exports were 11.46 trillion yuan, up by 3.7 percent; while imports were 8.64 trillion yuan, down by 0.1 percent year-on-year.

The rapid growth of Guangxi's foreign trade can be attributed to local government's robust actions, with the economic growth been the focus from the beginning of the year, encouraging enterprises to expand the market abroad; Guangxi has also introduced a series of policies to stimulate foreign trade development, said Lei Xiaohua, an expert from the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, the report added.

The rapid growth of foreign trade between China and the ASEAN countries benefited Guangxi's trade performance a lot, Lei said, adding that the region would maintain high growth for the whole year.

Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia also benefitted from similar policies. China's trade with Central Asia and Russia has grown significantly in recent years; border trade has also grown rapidly, according to the report.

Statistics from Hohhot Customs shows that there was a substantial foreign trade increase between Inner Mongolia and the BRI countries in the first six months of the year. The foreign trade volume reached 61.74 billion yuan, up by 55.3 percent year-on-year, accounting for 68.4 percent of the region's overall value, the report said.

Li Qinghua, deputy director of Urumqi Customs, said a variety of trade modes are competing to grow in this region. Xinjiang's small-scale border trade increased by 85.2 percent in the first half, driving the growth of its total foreign trade by 46.7 percentage points during this period.