Textile and Garment Exports Increased by 8.3% in the Last October

The Ministry of Commerce today (20th) held a press conference to inform the business operations of China from January to October 2012. Shen Danyang, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, introduced that in the previous October, China’s trade with the United States, the ASEAN and other important trading partners grew steadily, and trade with the EU and Japan declined year-on-year. Among them, the bilateral trade volume between China and Japan fell by 2.1%.

Customs statistics show that from January to October, China's total value of imports and exports was 316.157 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 6.3% year-on-year. Among them, exports of 1,670.9 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 7.8%; imports of 1,490.67 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 4.6%; trade surplus of 180.2 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 45.6%.

Shen Danyang introduced the main features of China’s foreign trade operation in the previous October:

(1) Trade with the United States, ASEAN and other important trading partners grew steadily, and trade with the EU and Japan decreased year-on-year. In the first 10 months, bilateral trade between China and the United States increased by 9.1%. Total bilateral trade between China and ASEAN increased by 9.4%. Total bilateral trade with Russia, South Africa, and Brazil increased by 13.4%, 34.9%, and 3.5% respectively. The volume of bilateral trade between China and the EU dropped by 3.0. %; bilateral trade volume between China and Japan decreased by 2.1%. From January to September, the proportion of emerging markets in my total foreign trade increased, and the share of developed countries in my total foreign trade decreased by 1.7 percentage points.

(II) Exports from the central and western regions continued to be strong, while exports from the eastern region increased. In the first 10 months, exports in the central region increased by 20.2%, and exports in the western region increased by 43.6%. Among them, Chongqing's exports increased by 1.4 times year-on-year, and Anhui, Henan, and Sichuan's exports grew by 67.9%, 54.1%, and 40.2%, respectively. Exports in the eastern region increased by 4.8%, which was a 0.5 percentage point increase over the first three quarters. Exports from Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong increased by 7.5%, 7.1%, 4.1%, 4.4%, and 1.4%, respectively, both lower than the national export growth over the same period. The proportion of the total amount of foreign trade in the central and western regions rose by 1.3 percentage points, and the proportion of exports rose by 2 percentage points.

(3) The growth rate of import and export of general trade was stable, and the growth of import and export of processing trade was weak. In the first 10 months, China's general trade imports and exports totaled 1,655.63 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 5.5%. Among them, exports accounted for USD 811.04 billion, up 8.5%; imports were USD 844.23 billion, up 2.7%. The import and export of processing trade reached 1,985.33 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 2.5%, of which exports were 705.23 billion U.S. dollars, up 3.0%; imports were 393.29 billion U.S. dollars, up 1.6%.

(4) Exports of mechanical and electrical products have increased steadily, and exports of labor-intensive products have continued to rise. In the first 10 months, China’s exports of machinery and electronic products totaled 957.38 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 8.5%, which was 0.7 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of exports during the same period. The export of seven types of labor-intensive products such as textiles, clothing, furniture, footwear, bags, plastics (9825, 20.00, 0.20%) products and toys increased by 8.3%. In the month of October, the export of mechanical and electrical products increased by 10.2%, which was 1.9 percentage points faster than that in the first three quarters. Exports of the seven categories of labor-intensive products increased by 20.7%, 13.7 percentage points faster than the previous three quarters.