MOFCOM Released Report on Chinese Foreign Trade Development (Autumn 2012)

MOFCOM released, on October 26, Report on Chinese Foreign Trade Development (Autumn 2012). The Report made a review on performance ofChina’s foreign trade in the first three quarters, a forecast on the fourth quarter, and a projection for 2013.

According to the report, China's foreign trade development was faced with complex and challenging environmenthome and abroad, import and export fell to single digit growth, and import and export enterprises were confronted withmore difficulties. Chinese Government introduced a series of policies and measures to promote the steady growth of foreign trade and optimize trade structure, which boosted the confidence of enterprises and played an important role in stabilization of foreign trade. With implementation of the policies and measures, import and export in the fourth quarteris expected to maintain the upward trend in September as well as China's share of total global trade is expected to remain stable or rise slightly.

According to the report,the environment both home and abroad for China's foreign trade development in 2013 may be slightly better than that of 2012, but the restraint to the recovery of foreign trade still exist. Under the circumstance of weak overseas demand, the impact of trade friction on Chinese exports continued to increase, and the transformation of foreign trade development is more urgent. With the profound changes in environmentboth home and abroad, China's foreign trade may be difficult tohave sustained rapid growth like previous years.

The report said thatconfronted with complex and challenging environment both home and abroad, China should continue to lay stress in foreign trade on “stabilizing growth, adjusting structure and promoting balance. On one hand, based on the current situation, MOFCOM will closely track changes of foreign trade, and ensure the implementation of variouspolicies and measures which has been introduced On the other hand, MOFCOM will make full use of the mechanism formed by the tightening market environment, accelerate the transformation of foreign trade, and enhance the long-term development of foreign trade. Meanwhile, MOFCOM will improve the policies of import and build more platforms to promote import so as to enhance the balanced development of foreign trade.