China's foreign trade still global growth driver: China Daily editorial

Statistics from the General Administration of Customs on Wednesday showed that China's foreign trade in goods in the first three quarters totaled 28.33 trillion yuan ($4.4 trillion), up 22.7 percent year-on-year. Exports increased by 24.5 percent and imports by 22 percent. This speaks volumes about the resilience of China's foreign trade.

The fact that the country's foreign trade has been continuously expanding quarter by quarter suggests that there is still potential for its continued growth in the near future. Effectively containing the spread of the novel coronavirus has made it possible for the rapid recovery of the country's domestic economy, which has laid a solid foundation for the continuous expansion of its foreign trade.

It is obvious the policies implemented by the central authorities have injected vitality into the country's foreign trade, with the series of policies to promote the development of a new mode of foreign trade and facilitate cross-border trade transactions providing strong support to the expansion of foreign trade. As a result, China's cross-border e-commerce trade increased by 20.1 percent in the first three quarters, and the exports through market procurement trade registered an increase of 37.7 percent in the same period. The trade in China's pilot free trade zones increased by 27.8 percent in the same period, with revenue from the sales of commodities in Hainan island, the country's duty-free province, increasing by 120.8 percent.

The recovery of the global economy and trade has stimulated global demand for commodities from China. The International Monetary Fund has forecast that the growth of the global economy will be 5.9 percent this year. And the World Trade Organization predicts that the volume of global trade will increase by 10.8 percent this year. Both projections were supported by China's exports to the United States, the European Union and African countries increasing more than 20 percent in the first three quarters of the year. China's exports to Latin American countries even increased by more than 40 percent.

While addressing the opening of the 130th Canton Fair on Thursday, Premier Li Keqiang said China will reinforce international cooperation in the digitization of trade and green development, continue to improve the rule-of-law business environment, and strive to reach more free trade deals with its partners to facilitate the global post-pandemic recovery.

This pledge represents China's latest reassurance of its ardent support for economic globalization, and the world's second-largest economy's commitment to further integrating into the global value chains and the world market.

It remains to be seen whether the pandemic will be brought under control globally any time soon, so China's foreign trade faces a lot of uncertainties. Yet, with the healthy development of the domestic economy, China's foreign trade will certainly continue to contribute to the global economy.