August trade still on the rise but challenges remain

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China's foreign trade kept rising in the first eight months of 2017, with a 17 percent increase from one year ago. The General Administration of Customs said Friday that while the growth is in line with macro economic fundamentals, there are challenges ahead.

“The world economy kept recovering this year. China's domestic growth has stabilized and rebounded, and policy favors for foreign trade continue to kick in,” said Huang Songping, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs.

Shipments with major partners, including the United States, the European Union and Japan were among those that increased.

CGTN Photo

The improved situation also gives China the opportunity to upgrade its trade structure by shifting from labor-intensive products to more advanced services.

Quality goods and high value-added machinery and equipment helped improve China’s trade mixing.

“The auto exports gained 28 percent, while medical devices increased 10 percent. What is more, China's cultural product exports edged up 21 percent,” Huang said.

However, the trade expansion rate cooled in August as exports rose 5.5 percent, slower than forecast, but import growth beat expectations to gain 13 percent.

That’s partly because commodity prices surged while overall demand for those imports jumped, which led to a trade surplus of 42 billion US dollars, down from 50 billion dollars in July.

More than half of the trade surplus was with the US, as the gap expanded in August to more than 26 billion dollars from 25 billion in July.

For the government, the task is to keep the surplus at a reasonable level while boosting trade with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

“We want to become the main gateway for trade flows with the Belt and Road countries. We now work 24/7 on customs clearance with a fast-track clearance channel that only takes seconds to finish the work,” said Cai Bin, Deputy Director of Zhanjiang Customs in Guangdong.

Analysts say China's foreign trade still faces uncertainty and shipments in the second half of the year may fall short of the first six months. However, monthly figures may be volatile.

(Xia Cheng also contributed to the story)