China records 6% rise in foreign trade

China saw its foreign trade increase 6 percent on a yearly basis to 2.88 trillion yuan in August, with exports surging 11.6 percent and imports declining 0.5 percent respectively, data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed on Monday.

The country's foreign trade of goods reached 20.05 trillion yuan in the first eight months of 2020, down 0.6 percent year-on-year. The drop narrowed by 1.1 percentage points compared with the decline between January and July, Customs data showed.

China's foreign trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, its largest trading partner, jumped 7 percent year-on-year to 2.93 trillion yuan during the eight-month period, while its trade volume with the European Union, its second-largest trading partner, grew 1.4 percent on a yearly basis to 2.81 trillion yuan.

In the meantime, China's goods trade with the US fell by 0.4 percent on a yearly basis to 2.42 trillion yuan.

The imports and exports of China's private companies reached 9.21 trillion yuan between January and August, a rise of 8.5 percent year-on-year, accounting for 45.9 percent of the country's total foreign trade value.