China's foreign trade up 4.2% in first seven months

BEIJING - China's foreign trade of goods rose 4.2 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of this year to 17.41 trillion yuan ($2.49 trillion), customs data showed Thursday.

Exports increased 6.7 percent year-on-year to 9.48 trillion yuan during the period, while imports grew 1.3 percent to 7.93 trillion yuan, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said.

China saw its trade surplus widen by 47.4 percent year-on-year to 1.55 trillion yuan during the same period.

China's trade mix continued to optimize with the general trade growing both in volume and proportion in the January-July period. General trade grew 5.7 percent year-on-year and accounted for 59.8 percent of the total trade, 0.8 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.

The European Union remained as China's largest trading partner in the period, with bilateral trade volume up 10.8 percent from one year earlier to 2.72 trillion yuan, followed by the ASEAN, up 11.3 percent to 2.35 trillion yuan, and the United States, down 8.1 percent to 2.1 trillion yuan.

China's trade with Belt and Road countries totaled 5.03 trillion yuan, up 10.2 percent year-on-year, 6 percentage points higher than the overall pace, said the GAC, adding that the amount accounted for 28.9 percent of China's total trade volume.

China's private businesses reported faster trade growth in the first seven months, with the trade volume increasing 11.8 percent to 7.31 trillion yuan. The amount accounted for 42 percent of the total trade volume in the period, up 2.9 percentage points year-on-year.