Recently, the General Administration of Customs announced foreign trade data for May. How to treat export data performance? How to interpret the increase in the total value of trade with ASEAN against the trend? Why are crude oil and soybean imports soaring? Gao Feng, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, responded one by one at the regular online press conference held on June 11.

 

Gao Feng said that according to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, in RMB terms, China's exports in May increased by 1.4%. This is mainly due to the continuous improvement of China's domestic epidemic prevention and control situation and the orderly progress of resumption of work and production. In the early stage, the State Council issued a series of policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade, which were implemented by various regions and departments, and the results gradually appeared.

 

Gao Feng further pointed out that the current global epidemic situation is still severe, it will take time for market demand to recover, and there are still many uncertainties in trade. In the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will, in accordance with the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, do a solid job of stabilizing foreign trade and securing market entities, support marketable export commodities to open up the domestic market, and help foreign trade companies to protect markets, customers, and orders. With the stability of the industrial chain and supply chain, we will go all out to complete the goal of promoting stability and improving quality of imports and exports this year.

 

In the first five months of this year, China’s imports and exports with ASEAN were 1.7 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%, of which China’s exports to ASEAN were 936.62 billion yuan, an increase of 2.8%, and China’s imports from ASEAN were 759.86 billion yuan, an increase of 6%, both higher than that of my country in the same period. The overall growth rate of foreign trade imports and exports. ASEAN has become China's largest trading partner. Gao Feng said that this fully reflects the potential and resilience of bilateral trade development.

 

Gao Feng said that China and ASEAN countries have strong economic complementarities. For a long time, relevant countries have given full play to their respective advantages and economic cooperation in the region has been deepening. In particular, since the establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, the two sides have continued to expand market opening, continue to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and continue to deepen cooperation in the industrial chain and supply chain.

 

Gao Feng stated that China is willing to further strengthen cooperation with ASEAN countries in the areas of trade, investment and economic cooperation, make full use of relevant regional free trade arrangements, support enterprises to expand trade exchanges, encourage enterprises to conduct two-way investment, and jointly maintain the stability of the supply chain of the industrial chain in the region. , Security and development.

 

In response to media questions about the sharp increase in imports of crude oil and soybeans in May, Gao Feng said that this was an import carried out by Chinese companies in accordance with changes in the international market and domestic production needs, in accordance with market principles. Factors such as the depreciation of Brazil’s currency and increased willingness to export soybeans have also promoted the growth of my country’s soybean imports. In the context of increasing downward pressure on the world economy, Chinese companies are actively expanding imports, which will help boost confidence in world economic development.

 

Data show that from January to May this year, my country's crude oil and soybean imports increased by 5.2% and 6.8% respectively; in May, imports increased by 19.3% and 27.7%.