Recently, the MOFCOM News Spokesman has met the press and answered question on the WTO’s reducing the global trade growth.

Q: On September 27, the WTO published the Trade Outlook Report, reducing the growth of the volume of global trade in goods from 2.8% anticipated in April to 1.7%. The reason is that the trade and economic growth of developing economies such as China and Brazil slows down and the import of North America decreases. How do you comment on this?

A: We have noticed that the WTO reduces the growth of the volume of global trade in 2016 in its latest Trade Outlook Report. This further shows that the global economic recovery is weak, the international market demand is depressed, the uncertain factors are increasing and the global economy is still in the profound adjustment period since the international financial crisis.

At the same time, the WTO believes that there are many reasons resulting in the slow growth of the volume of global trade in goods. The global economic inertia is the root cause of the slow global trade. The turmoil of the international financial market increases the uncertainty of the global trade recovery. The spread of the anti-trade climate promotes the trade policies within all countries and the trade protectionism is rising.

We should see that since the financial crisis, China has always been a positive “contributor” no matter in driving the global economic growth or in promoting the international trade recovery.

According to the data published by the IMF, China, as the second largest economy, contributed more than 25% to the global economic growth between 2009 and 2015. In recent years, China’s economy has maintained a medium-and-high-speed growth and its structural transformation and upgrading have been accelerated. This has been depending on the reform and innovation when the development cardinal number is higher, the international environment is severe and complex, and the deep-rooted problems accumulated in the country have kept emerging and intensifying for a long time are prominent. In the first half of 2016, China’s economy increased 6.7%, ranking forefront of the major economies of the globe.

Affected by factors such as the bleak overseas market demand and the weakened traditional competitive advantages, the growth of China’s foreign trade has slowed down in recent years, but has still been better than the major world economies. From the trade volume, the share of China’s export rose to 13.8%. In the previous eight months in 2016, the accumulative decreasing amplitude of China’s foreign trade import and export narrowed for six consecutive years, showing a stable and recovering situation. From the trade quantum, according to the statistics of the WTO, the global export trade volume and the import trade volume in the first year of 2016 increased 0.7% and 0.2% respectively. At the same time, China’s export trade volume and import trade volume increased 0.6% and 3% respectively, better than the average level of the globe.

As a big trading nation, in recent years, China has positively implemented the import policy and constantly expanded the opening of domestic market, which has not only satisfied the domestic economic growth and consumption demand, but also contributed a lot to the world trade volume. Over the years, the import quantity of China’s bulk commodity has continued to enjoy a rapid development. In January-August 2016, the import quantity of 10 kinds of bulk commodities such as crude oil, iron ore, natural gas, copper product, copper concentrate and soybean continued to maintain the momentum of growth, with an increase ranging from 3.1% to 34.6%.

In particular, at present, one third of China’s import and export of foreign trade is realized through processing trade, mainly depending on the international market demand. On account of the long-time weak international market demand, the import of China’s processing trade has decreased for 19 consecutive months, with a decrease of more than 10% on the average. This is the important factor which pulls down China’s overall import growth.

In general, it will not change the bright future of China’s economy . China enjoys industrial complementary advantages with developed and developing countries and the transformation of the power for the structure adjustment of foreign trade is to be accelerated.

At the same time, China is the major “victim” of the global trade protectionism. According to the relevant report released by the WTO in June, from October 2015 to May 2016, the G20 implemented 145 new trade limitation measures, almost 21 on an average monthly, marking the highest number since the WTO supervised the trade limitation measures in 2009. In the previous 8 months this year, China encountered 85 trade remedy investigation cases initiated by 20 countries (regions), with an amount of US$10.3 billion. The caseload went up 49% and the involved amount increased 94%.

The recently concluded G20 Hangzhou Summit reached a series of important consensuses on strengthening the macro policy coordination of all countries and promoting the strong growth of the international trade and investment. China is willing to work with all countries to continue to insist on the concept of international trade liberalization, to open further to the outside world, to constantly improve the level of trade facilitation, to positively implement the consensuses of the Summit, to unswervingly oppose the trade protectionism in all kinds of form, to join hands to help the world trade rise from the nadir and to push forward the sustainable growth of the global trade.