China's 2009 foreign trade value estimated to drop 16%

"Impacted by the global financial crisis, China's total import and export value for the entire 2009 is sure to have negative growth. The figure was estimated to fall about 16 percent year-on-year to reach about 2.2 trillion U.S. dollars," said Minister of Commerce Chen Deming at a national commercial work conference held on December 24.

According to the data released earlier by the MOFCOM, China's total import and export value totaled 1.964 trillion U.S. dollars in the first 11 months, a decrease of 17.5 percent year-on-year. Exports value dropped 18.8 percent to 1.071 trillion U.S. dollars and imports value dropped 15.8 percent to 893 billion U.S. dollars. The import and export value has rebounded with a noticeably lessened rate of decline since this year's second half and achieved this year's first year-on-year growth in November.

Chen added that the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) will focus on "maintaining market shares, adjusting the structure and promoting the balance" in 2010. The first is to promote a stable export growth. The second is to accelerate the foreign trade structure adjustments. The third is to expand imports on products that China has a strong demand for, urge Europe and the U.S. to ease high-tech export controls, boost imports on advanced technologies, equipment, key components and urgently needed products, and increase imports and reserves of strategic resources. The fourth is to promote exports of services in major fields.

By People's Daily Online