Business / Economy

MoC warns of further fall in foreign trade

By Yao Jing (China Daily) Updated: 2014-04-18 07:21

As China's foreign trade unexpectedly slipped in the first quarter in 2014, the Ministry of Commerce ratcheted up its warnings about a further drop in April, but predicted a pickup in May and a continued recovery within this year.

Meanwhile, the ministry is speeding up its testing and investigating in maintaining the growth of exports, providing fuel for the transformation of the processing trade.

MoC warns of further fall in foreign trade

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"We are expecting a better performance in foreign trade in the second quarter, but the bounce may be arriving in May," said Shen Danyang, a ministry spokesman, at a news conference on Thursday in Beijing.

"The full-year trade growth will be similar to last year - and we are confident of reaching that goal," said Shen.

Despite the 3.7 percent decline in total foreign trade, exports to significant markets, such as the European Union, United States and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, increased more than 5 percent respectively in the first quarter.

Further, in terms of goods, exports of color television sets, electric motors, steel, toys, ceramic products, fertilizers and other bulk commodities, China realized a year-on-year growth of more than 10 percent in the same period.

"We have to pay close attention to the full-year trend against the background of the recovery in developed economies and the slowdown in emerging countries," Shen said.

But Shen mentioned that positive factors, including the resilient demand of the global market, the improvement of competitiveness among Chinese manufacturers and the government's decision to boost and upgrade exports, will help the world's second-largest economy to produce a satisfactory outcome at the end of this year.