China to step up trade promotion efforts
More than 1,000 delegations to head overseas to explore markets: CCPIT
China’s main trade promotion body said on Tuesday that global economic and trade friction continued to worsen in November 2023, with major economies such as the US having introduced more restrictive measures. It vowed to step up trade promotion in 2024, including organizing overseas trips by more than 1,000 business delegations, to help stabilize trade.
Trade experts said that the external environment for China’s foreign trade will likely continue to deteriorate in 2024, with declining demand and rising protectionism, but China’s advantages and resilience will remain.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) announced its economic and trade friction index for November 2023, which showed a persistent trend of rising friction.
Overall, the index, which tracks 20 countries and regions including China, the US and the EU, rose by 29 points yearon-year to 170. The value of trade affected by friction rose 8 percent year-on-year, though it dropped by 41.8 percent from the previous month.
According to the CCPIT, 29 tariff measures, 21 trade remedy investigations, eight trade restrictions and 156 other restrictive measures were launched by the countries and regions it surveyed, led by Brazil, the US and Mexico. The sub-index for trade friction involving China remained at a high level. Trade friction between Brazil and the US was also severe, the CCPIT said.
Experts said that rising economic and trade friction mainly reflected surging protectionism in many countries and regions, especially the US. Still, China, as the world’s biggest trading nation, has played and will continue to play a positive role in helping stabilize global trade, they noted.
“China-US trade friction mostly reflected the protectionism of the US ... which adopted an over-extended concept of ‘national security’ in targeting China,” Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Tuesday. He noted that as China-US trade cooperation has been hijacked by US politics, the trend of rising friction will likely continue.
Yang Fan, a CCPIT spokesperson, said on Tuesday that external demand remains sluggish, trade protectionism is still on the rise and geopolitical conflicts are worsening, all of which will exert pressure on foreign trade this year.
“But at the same time, what is more important to note is that China’s economy is highly resilient, has great potential and is full of vitality. As policy effects gradually emerge and high-level opening-up is steadily promoted, new momentum for trade development will be accelerated, and the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment will continue to be consolidated,” Yang told the press conference on Tuesday.
To further stabilize foreign trade, the CCPIT will take various measures, including convening major trade fairs like the 2nd China International Supply Chain Expo.