From January to April this year, Guangdong's foreign trade maintained a strong growth trend, with imports and exports reaching 2.8 trillion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 12.3 percent, contributing 41 percent to China's foreign trade growth. Of this total, exports reached 1.8 trillion RMB, up by 8.8 percent, and imports reached 999.67 billion RMB, up by 19.1 percent, according to data released by the Guangdong Sub-Administration of the GACC at a conference held on May 10.
The import and export scale of private enterprises has also been growing. In the first four months of this year, the foreign trade volume of Guangdong's private enterprises reached 1.77 trillion RMB, an increase of 18.1 percent, accounting for 63.2 percent of the province's total import and export value. Meanwhile, the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises reached 879.44 billion RMB, and that of state-owned enterprises reached 146.67 billion RMB, accounting for 31.4 percent and 5.2 percent of the province's total foreign trade volume, respectively.
In addition, Guangdong's trade with its major trading partners all achieved positive growth. In the past four months, ASEAN, Hong Kong SAR, the United States, the European Union, and China's Taiwan Province were Guangdong's top five trading partners, accounting for 16.1 percent, 12.4 percent, 11.4 percent, 11.2 percent, and 7.5 percent of Guangdong's total import and export value, respectively. Moreover, during this period, Guangdong's import and export to BRI partner countries was 1.05 trillion RMB, an increase of 8.0 percent, accounting for 37.3 percent of Guangdong's total foreign trade.
Furthermore, at the press conference held on May 10, Guangdong also introduced a package of 24 integrated measures in five foreign-related fields to further promote high-level opening up in a new era. Guangdong will make every effort to stabilize the scale of foreign trade, improve its structure, and boost foreign investment. It will focus on building a batch of export-oriented industrial clusters in electronic information, light textiles, smart home appliances, and new energy storage, with the target of reaching one trillion yuan-level and 100 billion yuan-level clusters.
In terms of attracting foreign investment, the province will promote the "Invest in Guangdong" brand and continue to hold the Global Investment Promotion Conference for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Conference for Economic and Trade Cooperation between the Pearl River Delta and the Eastern, Western, and Northern Regions of Guangdong Province.
Looking forward to the second quarter of this year, Guangdong's foreign trade is expected to continue the overall good momentum, with the support of positive expectations in both the domestic and foreign economies, improvement in demand, and increases in enterprise orders, noted the Guangdong Sub-Administration of the GACC.
Reporter | Nancy Ye
Poster | Mia
Editors | Olivia, Steven, Nan, Will, James
