Bumper Harvest

China has achieved another year of bumper harvest in 2018 with grain output remaining at a high level, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on December 15, 2018.

The grain output stood at 657.89 million tons, down by 3.71 million tons or 0.6 percent from the previous year, the NBS said. NBS statistician Hou Rui attributed the decline to changes in the cropping structure and decrease in planting area, which shrank by 952,000 hectares from the previous year.

China’s grain output remains strong despite the decline, and per-unit yield has improved thanks to favorable weather conditions, Hou said. Cereal output reached 6,120 kg per hectare, up 0.3 percent from 2017, while per-unit yield of beans grew by 2.7 percent.

6,120 kg Cereal output per hectare in 2018

Growing Foreign Trade

While China’s customs data points to solid growth in imports and exports in the first 11 months of 2018, experts predicted a continuously narrowing surplus and a growing trade volume in 2019.

According to the General Administration of Customs, China saw 11.1 percent of yearly growth of trade in goods in first 11 months of 2018, with the value already exceeding the total foreign trade amount registered in 2017. Exports grew 8.2 percent year on year to $2.16 trillion from January to November, while imports saw 14.6 percent growth, totaling $1.88 trillion. This resulted in a trade surplus of $28 million, a 21.1-percent decrease compared to the same period of 2017.

Easier Shipping

Foreign shipping companies now find it easier to establish wholly-owned subsidiaries in China thanks to a revised regulation taking effect on January 1, 2019.

The newly revised rule states that the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Transport will be responsible for managing rather than approving the setup of fully foreign-owned shipping companies in China. output of China’s crude oil in October 2018 Applicants can go through relevant procedures with business regulators as required by the Law on Foreign-funded Enterprises and other related administrative rules, according to the revised regulation. To qualify for engaging in business operations, foreign companies must follow corporate registry rules to get business licenses from the administrative departments for industry and commerce and obtain a business permit from the departments in charge of transportation.

Easing Foreign Investment Restrictions

China has intensified efforts to implement policies designed to ease foreign investment restrictions and improve the business environment, Economic Information Daily reported.

Authorities have started to clear up restrictive regulations on foreign investment that go beyond the official negative list, the newspaper reported.

To improve investment and the business environment, and further facilitate opening up, the country will speed up the unification of regulations on domestic and foreign investment, according to Tang Wenhong, an official from the Ministry of Commerce at a press conference in earlier November.

By the end of 2018, various provinces have established and improved mechanisms to handle complaints from foreign businesses, the newspaper said.

Increasing Marine Economy

China’s marine economy saw steady progress with the gross ocean product rising 6.8 percent year on year to $864.6 billion in the first three quarters of 2018, data showed. Major marine enterprises monitored by the government posted strong profit growth, with their combined profits surging 89 percent year on year in the January-september period, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Statistics show that emerging marine industries maintained sustained and rapid growth, with business income of the marine medicine and bio-product industry as well as marine renewable energy sector growing by 9.2 percent and 6.5 percent respectively. With high domestic demand for natural gas, the production of offshore natural gas grew 9 percent year on year, to 11.3 billion cubic meters in the first three quarters.

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expected y.o.y growth of the net profit of commercial banks of China in 2018