Why did China's foreign trade performance exceed expectations in the first three quarters? Experts interpret multiple factors

At the "2024 Third Quarter Economic Situation Analysis Conference" held recently, Zhang Jianping, vice president of the China Social and Economic System Analysis Research Association, said that China's foreign trade performance in the first three quarters of this year exceeded expectations.

In the first three quarters, the total value of China's import and export of goods was 32.33 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%, and it exceeded 32 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period in history. The import and export values of foreign trade in each quarter were all above 10 trillion yuan, reaching 10.15 trillion, 11 trillion, and 11.17 trillion yuan respectively, which was also the first time in the same period in history.

In Zhang Jianping's view, as the world's largest manufacturing center, China's manufacturing value added accounts for about one-third of the world's share. As the only country in the world with a nearly full industrial system, China continues to encourage independent innovation and own independent property rights. These factors have promoted the high-quality growth of foreign trade.

Zhang Jianping said that through the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" and the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), China's foreign trade achievements in these two major markets are quite impressive. In the first three quarters, China's trade with more than 160 countries and regions in the world increased. Among them, the total import and export volume with the countries participating in the construction of the "Belt and Road" reached 15.21 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.3% year-on-year, higher than the overall growth rate of foreign trade. Imports and exports with ASEAN reached 5.09 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.4%.

From the perspective of the global market, Zhang Jianping also pointed out that the global foreign trade growth trend is obvious this year. He cited that according to the latest forecast of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the global foreign trade growth rate will reach 2.6% this year. As the world's largest country in goods trade, China has the greatest contribution and driving force to the growth of global foreign trade. If the foreign trade growth rate predicted by the WTO can be achieved as expected, it indicates that even in the face of the challenge of anti-globalization, China can still stabilize foreign trade growth.