In 2018, the province's import and export reached 4.38 trillion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 9.5%, the Nanjing Customs said on Friday. The volume of exports reached 2.66 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.4% from a year ago. The volume of imports reached 1.71 trillion yuan, up 11.3% year on year.
While maintaining steady growth, the province's foreign trade momentum has been transformed in an orderly manner with improved efficiency. The proportion of general trade imports and exports with higher added value increased and remained dominant positions while the import and export of processing trade with lower added value decreased significantly.
This change has resulted from the fact that Jiangsu’s foreign trade enterprises have continuously increased their independent innovation and research and development from a "high-speed growth" to a "high-quality development" against the complicated and ever-changing international situation.
Tongfang International, a computer manufacturing enterprise in Suzhou Industrial Park, decisively abandoned the low-end and mid-end product lines, focusing on higher value-added products such as e-sports laptops. Last year, the company registered import and export volume of more than 2 billion yuan, an increase of 80%. Its products were sold to more than 10 countries and regions.
The improvement of quality and efficiency has also been evidence in the composition of import and export products. The province’s export of mechanical and electrical products, occupying 66.1% of the total export value, has maintained rapid growth while the export growth of low value-added labor-intensive products such as clothing and luggage has slowed down. In terms of imports, with the acceleration of consumption upgrades, imports of high-quality consumer goods such as water and sea products and cosmetics maintained rapid growth.
In 2018, Jiangsu continued to diversify its trading partners under the influence of the Belt and Road initiative, as is evidenced by the growing pace of the import and export to countries along the Belt and Road. Its trade volume with Central and Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, West Asia and North Africa increased by 14.3%, 12% and 10.4%, respectively, which were higher than the province’s overall growth rate of foreign trade during the same period.
At the Lianyungang New Oriental Container Terminal, a batch of high-quality sand-fish and squid from Pakistan are undergoing inspections. After the customs clearance procedures are completed, they will soon appear on the table of the Chinese consumers.
Under the background of the country's policy of continuing to expand its opening up, Jiangsu has recently issued Policy Measures on Promoting the High-Quality Development of an Open Economy in a bid to accelerate the formation of a new comprehensive opening pattern spearheaded by the Belt and Road initiative. It is expected that the province’s foreign trade will continue to maintain a steady and positive trend this year.
（source：ourjiangsu.com ）
