On April 12, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the import and export situation in the first quarter of this year. Wang Lingjun, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, said that in the first quarter of this year, my country's import and export scale exceeded 10 trillion yuan for the first time in history during the same period, and the import and export growth rate hit a new high in six quarters.
According to customs statistics, in the first quarter, my country's total import and export value of goods trade was 10.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%. Among them, exports were 5.74 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.9%; imports were 4.43 trillion yuan, an increase of 5%; exports and imports accelerated by 4.1 percentage points and 2.3 percentage points respectively compared with the fourth quarter of last year.
In terms of trading partners, the growth rates of imports and exports to countries co-building the "Belt and Road" and other BRICS countries are higher than the overall growth rate. In the first quarter, my country's imports and exports to countries co-building the "Belt and Road" were 4.82 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.5%, accounting for 47.4% of the total import and export value, an increase of 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, imports and exports to ASEAN were 1.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.4%. During the same period, imports and exports to the other nine BRICS countries were 1.49 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.3%, accounting for 14.7%. In addition, imports and exports to the EU, the United States, South Korea and Japan were 1.27 trillion yuan, 1.07 trillion yuan, 535.48 billion yuan, and 518.2 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 33.4% in total.
From the perspective of regional performance, the eastern region shouldered the heavy burden. In the first quarter, the export and import growth rates were 2.7 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points higher than the overall growth respectively. The manufacturing industry in the central region has a clear trend of high-end and green transformation, with exports of high-end equipment and electric vehicles increasing by 42.6% and 107.3% respectively. The western region has taken over industrial transfers in an orderly manner, and the import and export of processing trade have turned from falling to increasing. The comprehensive revitalization of Northeast China has made new progress in the field of foreign trade, with the import and export scale exceeding 300 billion yuan for the first time in the first quarter.
Regarding the foreign trade situation in the second quarter, Wang Lingjun said that overall, unfavorable factors such as geopolitical tensions and trade protectionism still exist, bringing certain difficulties and challenges to foreign trade. But we must also note that there are many favorable factors for the current development of foreign trade. Global trade is showing signs of stabilization and improvement. The WTO predicts that global trade in goods will grow by 2.6% in 2024. The latest report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development also believes that global trade in goods is becoming optimistic. China Customs trade boom survey results show that the proportion of companies reporting an increase in export and import orders in March increased significantly compared with the previous month.
"It is expected that my country's imports and exports will continue to improve in the second quarter, and will basically remain on the growth channel in the first half of the year." Wang Lingjun said that in March this year, the General Administration of Customs held a special action deployment meeting to promote cross-border trade facilitation and proposed 33 projects to benefit enterprises and the people. Reform and innovation measures.
