General

According to the customs data released by the General Administration of Customs recently, in the first quarter of this year, China's import and export to countries along the "the Belt and Road" amounted to 3.43 trillion yuan, accounting for 34.7% of China's overall foreign trade; The year-on-year growth rate was 16.8%, 12 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate. Among them, exports reached 2.04 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.3%; Import reached 1.39 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.3%.

Experts interviewed said that in the context of the unfavorable global economic situation, China's trade with countries and regions along the "the Belt and Road" continued to move forward steadily, showing strong resilience. This achievement is also the result of the concerted efforts of all parties to build the "the Belt and Road" over the past decade.

The smooth flow of trade continues to deepen

Qi Xin, director of the "the Belt and Road" Economic and Trade Cooperation Research Institute of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with the International Business Daily that since the ten years of jointly building the "the Belt and Road", economic and trade cooperation has continued to deepen and consolidate, the level of trade liberalization and facilitation has significantly improved, and new forms of trade and new models have emerged. The overall global economic situation in the first quarter of this year is not optimistic, but China has shown strong resilience to the goods trade of countries along the "the Belt and Road". According to customs data, China achieved a total import and export value of 9.89 trillion yuan in RMB, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%. The volume of goods trade with countries along the "the Belt and Road" is 12 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade in the same period; According to customs data, the proportion of foreign trade in China's overall foreign trade reached a new high of 34.7%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than the proportion of foreign trade when the "the Belt and Road" initiative was proposed in 2013.

"This achievement is the result of the concerted efforts of all parties involved in the joint construction of the the Belt and Road over the past ten years. It is also inseparable from China, the initiator of the joint construction of the the Belt and Road, and the strong support of China's super large market," said Qi Xin.

In Qi Xin's view, China's trade in goods with countries along the "the Belt and Road" is more prominent. From a regional perspective, China's trade volume with ASEAN and Central Asian countries has grown rapidly, with exports to Singapore and the Philippines increasing by 78.2% and 23.3% year-on-year in US dollars. From the perspective of categories, trade complementarity continues to enhance, and the industrial chain supply chain is smoother. In the first quarter, China's export growth rates of lithium batteries, automotive components, and electrical control devices to countries and regions along the route were 50.3%, 40.5%, and 23.9%, respectively; The import of energy products and agricultural products has steadily increased, with import growth rates of 18.8% and 16.6%, respectively. At the same time, over the past decade, China has continuously promoted connectivity with countries and regions along the route. The development of China Europe freight trains, land sea new channels, and others has made rapid progress, injecting new momentum into China's economic and trade exchanges with countries and regions along the route, and also driving the opening up and development of the central and western regions. In the first quarter, the import and export growth rate in the central and western regions was 7.8 percentage points higher than the national average, accounting for 18.6% of the total, setting a new historical high for the same period.

Promote the healthy development of trade

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the initiative of jointly building the "the Belt and Road". Over the past decade, the trade scale between China and the co construction countries has steadily expanded. According to customs data, from 2013 to 2022, the trade volume of goods between China and countries and regions along the "the Belt and Road" has expanded from US $1.04 trillion to US $2.07 trillion, with an average annual growth of 8%; The proportion of China's imports and exports to countries and regions along the route to China's overall foreign trade has significantly increased from 25% in 2013 to 32.9% in 2022.

On how to further promote the healthy development of trade between China and countries along the Belt and Road, Qi Xin suggests that on the one hand, it is to seize the development dividends of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). RCEP has been implemented for over a year and will take effect for the Philippines in early June of this year. This marks the full entry into force of RCEP for 15 member states, and the world's largest free trade zone has entered a new stage of comprehensive implementation. Enterprises should fully study and utilize free trade agreements, including RCEP, to ensure industrial layout. On the other hand, we should strengthen efforts to promote the construction of new land sea channels, do a good job in hard connectivity, promote soft connectivity, and promote the construction of the China Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor relying on the China Laos Railway, the China Vietnam Railway, etc., to improve the ability to allocate global resources.

It is worth mentioning that since the opening of the China Laos Railway in December 2021, it has been favored by customers with its advantages of safety and speed, and its freight volume has been rising. According to customs data, from January 1 to April 13, 2023, the Laos section of the China Laos Railway will run 1130 freight trains in total, an increase of 122% year on year, and the freight volume will exceed 1.18 million tons. At the same time, the variety of goods has also become more diverse, expanding from over 100 in the early stages of opening to over 2000. At present, the China Laos Railway has been connected with the new land and sea channel in the west and the China Europe regular train. Goods are transported to more than 10 countries and regions along the "the Belt and Road", including Laos, Thailand and Singapore.

In addition, Qi Xin emphasized the need to innovate new forms and models of trade, expand cooperation in fields such as digital, health, green, and innovation, promote cooperation in the "Silk Road E-commerce", and closely connect the industrial chain and supply chain.