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Trade between China and the rest of the world rose 9.4% year-on-year in the first half of 2022 to 19.8 trillion yuan ($2.94 trillion, 2.92 billion euros), the Asian country’s General Administration of Customs reported today.
Yuan-denominated exports advanced 13.2% in the first half to 11.14 trillion yuan (1.66 trillion dollars, 1.65 trillion euros), while imports increased by 4.8%. According to customs authorities, up to 8.66 billion yuan (1.29 billion dollars, 1.28 billion euros).
In this period, China’s trade surplus stood at about 2.48 trillion yuan (369,011 million dollars, 367,622 million euros), a figure that represents a growth of 52.1% compared to the first half of 2021.
“China’s international trade experienced a notable recovery in the months of May and June,” Customs spokesman Li Kuiwen explained at a press conference in Beijing.
I pointed to the “bringing under control” of the covid outbreaks in the spring that caused the confinement of cities such as Shanghai (east) for more than two months and the effect of “growth stabilization policies” as factors in said recovery.
In the first six months of the year, the main trading partners of the Asian country were two supranational organizations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union, with whom trade grew by 10.6% and 7.5 % compared to the first half of 2021.
For its part, China’s exchanges with the United States increased by 11.7% compared to the first half of 2021.
This Wednesday, Customs also provided the data for June, the month in which the Asian giant’s exchanges with other countries rose 14.3% compared to the same month in 2021.
Exports continue to be one of the great driving forces of the Chinese economy, which next Friday will publish its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for the first half of the year. It will include the evolution of industrial production, investment in fixed assets, retail sales, and employment of a few months marked by the outbreaks of covid that led to the confinement of some cities in the country.
