MK socksloaded at a port in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, on November 11, 2024. Photo: VCG" src="https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2025/2025-01-19/5aac3312-8985-4302-8363-1c55b55afdfa.jpeg" />A China-Europe freight train is loaded at a port in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, on November 11, 2024. Photo: VCG
Chinese provincial governments are all-out to stabilize foreign trade this year, leveraging a barrage of supportive policies rolled out by the central government since the third quarter last year.
Huang Junqiao, an official with the Yiwu Bureau of Commerce in East China's Zhejiang Province, is now busily occupied with a long to-do list.
As an official with the commerce bureau of Yiwu, a key hub for global small commodity trade that has an annual trade value exceeding 1 billion yuan ($136 million) with 85 countries and regions in the world, Huang is currently organizing local companies to attend some 50 trade shows globally, with a focus on Southeast Asia and Africa.
"These are the emerging and fast-growing markets, and we as the government are working to establish platforms to help our companies stay attuned to the latest market trends and bring them closer to their customers," Huang told the Global Times on Sunday.
In 2024, Huang's department organized 32 trade shows targeting different regions in the world, in addition to holding multiple business delegations to visit foreign markets, according to the official WeChat account from Huang's department.
"To cope with rising pressure on trade, companies in Yiwu are seeking to optimize their business structure and improve efficiency in the upper stream of the supply chain to improve their profit margin," Huang said.
In the face of sluggish global trade, China has rolled out comprehensive measures to ensure steady import and export growth and support sustained economic recovery since September last year.
A slew of supportive policies implemented during the past months and innovative approaches by financial institutions in tackling bottlenecks in the operation of foreign trade firms have proven crucial to help stabilize foreign trade, Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Supportive policiesChina's foreign trade growth has softened since August last year as a backlash against globalization and rising protectionism dampened the prospect of global trade, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.
To address the headwind and help trade enterprises to better cope with issues from export credit insurance to financing for SMEs and shipping logistics, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) in November published a notice focused on measures to strengthen financial support for businesses engaged in international trade, foster new trade drivers such as e-commerce and green trade, and enhance services including favorable visa policies for businessmen.
In Ningbo, an e-commerce powerhouse in East China's Zhejiang Province, the local branch of China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) has extended the scale of eligible applicants for its financial products aimed at supporting cross-border e-commerce.
"In order to strengthen support for enterprises, we have expanded our financial services to accommodate all entities in the whole cross-border e-commerce ecosystem," Zhang Yongqing, a deputy general manager with Ningbo branch of Sinosure, told the Global Times on Sunday.
A livestreaming host introduces foreign products to Chinese buyers. Courtesy of Ningbo Daily
Ningbo plans to nurture 24 key cross-border e-commerce businesses with annual transaction volumes exceeding 1 billion yuan by 2027, according to a guideline issued in October last year.
The government's pro-growth policies, like the expansion of visa-free policies, has helped merchants to upgrade their contacts with their Chinese counterparts from online communication to convenient face-to-face exchange, Bai said.
Cross-border e-commerce is emerging as one of the new growth drivers for China's foreign trade.
The General Administration of Customs (GAC) said on Monday that new types of trade, such as cross-border e-commerce, boomed in 2024, with the annual value of cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reaching 2.63 trillion yuan, an increase of 1 trillion yuan compared to 2020.
Tapping BRI marketsCommerce authorities at the central and local levels also collaborated with relevant government agencies to implement targeted measures to boost trade with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries.
In 2024, China's trade volume with BRI partner countries accounted for more than 50 percent of the nation's total trade for the first time in history with an annual growth of 6.4 percent, according to GAC on January 13.
Yiwu's Huang noted that by sniffing out market opportunities in the new markets, many foreign trade companies have successfully upgraded their products offerings or shifted tracks to cater for new market demand in the newly carved out market.
In 2024, Yiwu's foreign trade reached 668.9 billion yuan with a year-on-year increase of 18.2 percent. The city's exports grew by 17.7 percent, local customs data showed.
China's imports and exports grew by 5 percent year-on-year in 2024 to reach 43.85 trillion yuan, with the total foreign trade volume setting a new record high, according to GAC data. For the whole year, China's total exports grew by 7.1 percent year-on-year to reach 25.45 trillion yuan, the customs' data showed.
On January 13, GAC deputy head Wang Lingjun said that major international economic organizations have predicted continued growth of global trade in goods this year and that the supporting factors for promoting high-quality development of China's foreign trade will remain in 2025.
At the national commerce work conference held in Beijing from January 11-12, the MOFCOM vowed to take more efforts to stimulate domestic consumption and stabilize foreign trade in 2025.
On the foreign trade front, ensuring stable import and export activities and fostering high-quality trade growth remain key objectives, the ministry noted. Efforts will be made to foster cross-border e-commerce, promote green and digital trade, and support Chinese enterprises in exploring international markets.