He Yongqian: Friends from the press, good afternoon. Welcome to the regular press conference of MOFCOM. Let me start by sharing a piece of information with you.

First, China’s overseas investment cooperation in the first quarter of 2025

From January to April, 2025, China’s outward direct investment totaled USD57.54 billion, down by 7.5% year on year. Chinese ODI in non-financial assets reached USD51.04 billion, up 5.6% year on year. In particular, investment by Chinese enterprises in non-financial assets in Belt and Road partner countries reached USD12.78 billion, up 16.4% year on year.

In the first four months, the revenue of overseas projects contracted by Chinese companies reached USD47.11 billion, up 6.8% year on year. The value of newly signed contracts reached USD76.59 billion, up 22.4% year on year. In particular, the revenue of projects contracted by Chinese enterprises in Belt and Road partner countries was USD37.99 billion, up 5.2% year on year and the value of newly signed contracts reached USD64.54 billion, up by 17.4% year on year.

That is all I have to share with you. Now I am ready to take your questions.

The floor is open.

Economic Information Daily: The recent State Council meeting on promoting domestic circulation on May 15 stressed that strengthening domestic circulation and boosting consumption should be a strategic move to drive economic growth. Going forward, what measures will MOFCOM take to stimulate domestic market and consumption?

He Yongqian: MOFCOM will follow through the requirements of relevant meetings, better leverage consumption to propel economic circulation, strengthen domestic circulation and open wider at a high standard to cope with all kinds of uncertainties with the stability of high-quality development.

First, we will accelerate the implementation of the campaign on boosting consumption and continuously enhance the inherent momentum of domestic circulation. Efforts will be made to upgrade commodity consumption through consumer goods trade-in programs, pilot reforms in automotive circulation and consumption, and leveraging platforms like the China International Import Expo (CIIE) and the China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE) to stimulate spending. We will expand service consumption by steadily promoting comprehensive pilot demonstrations for service sector opening up, and implementing service consumption quality improvement initiatives to diversify supply in healthcare, elderly care, childcare, and housekeeping services. Efforts will also be made to develop new types of consumption by promoting the debut economy that suits local conditions, as well as health-related, digital and environmentally-friendly consumption. We will create new consumption scenarios through the further development of international consumption center cities, hosting the “Shopping in China” campaign, and optimizing tax refund policies for overseas visitors to spur inbound spending.

Meanwhile, we will move faster to modernize commercial circulation systems and strengthen the foundation for domestic circulation. We will encourage logistics facility upgrades and expand pilot cities for commercial circulation. Efforts will be made to build a tiered urban commercial network featuring demonstration pedestrian streets or commercial hubs, specialty business districts, and community business facilities. We will enhance county-level commercial systems and support wholesale and retail industry transformation. Smart supply chains will be developed to improve cross-sector coordination. We will promote the development of standardized commercial and trading logistics and support the development of recycling and secondhand market. Efforts will be made to advance high-quality e-commerce development through the good quality e-commerce initiative, specialized industrial e-commerce platforms, and sector-specific matchmaking events to foster a healthy ecosystem for e-commerce.

Additionally, we will accelerate the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade to help enterprises to build resilience to external shocks. Support will provided for export-oriented businesses in exploring domestic markets through policies and initiatives like the “China Tour for Foreign Trade Premium Products”. We will encourage business associations, supermarkets and e-commerce platforms to source from foreign trade businesses, and incorporate more automotive, home appliance, and furniture exporters in trade-in programs. We will deepen pilot programs for integrated development of domestic and foreign trade to help foreign trade companies to do business in both domestic and international markets and enhance resilience to global risks.

Shenzhen Satellite TV: The 31st APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting recently concluded in South Korea. Could you brief us on the outcomes and highlight emerging areas for trade cooperation in the future?

He Yongqian: The 31st APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting held in Jeju, South Korea on May 15-16 marked this year’s first major multilateral trade ministers’ meeting and grabbed significant global attention. Through intensive consultations, participants reached a series of important consensus and issued a joint statement.

At the meeting, APEC members expressed grave concern over unilateralism and protectionism undermining the multilateral trading system. Participants reaffirmed the WTO’s critical role, endorsed early incorporation of the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement into WTO frameworks, and agreed to pursue necessary, meaningful WTO reforms and make joint efforts to ensure substantial outcomes at the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC14).

All parties reaffirmed that they would continue to fully implement the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 and promote the building of an open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific community. The parties also reached a series of consensus on regional economic integration, the development of Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), the digital economy, intellectual property rights, supply chain connectivity, artificial intelligence, trade in services, standards and conformity assessment procedures, and pledged to continue to deepen cooperation.

China is ready to strengthen communication and collaboration with all parties to give better play to the platform role of APEC, push Asia-Pacific economic and trade cooperation to better benefit the economies and people, and help build a community of shared future in the Asia-Pacific. Thank you.

Phoenix: There are reports that China International Trade Representative and Vice Minister Li Chenggang lashed out at US export controls on AI chips at the APEC meeting last week. What’s your comment?

He Yongqian: On May 15-16, the 31st APEC’s Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting (MRT Meeting) was held in Jeju, South Korea. Li Chenggang, China International Trade Representative and Vice Minister of Commerce, attended the meeting with a delegation and elaborated on China’s positions on topics such as promoting connectivity through the multilateral trading system, promoting trade facilitation with AI innovation, and sustainable trade for prosperity and development.

With regard to the export controls by the U.S. on AI chips that you have mentioned, China has repeatedly stated its position. The abuse of export controls by the U.S. to suppress China violates international law and the basic norms of international relations, seriously undermines the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, and jeopardises China’s development interests. China firmly opposes this and will closely follow the new developments on the U.S. side and take resolute measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests. Thank you.

21st Century Business Herald: We noted that, driven by the trade-in policy, the retail of home appliances has maintained double-digit growth for eight consecutive months. Could you give us more information?

He Yongqian: According to the statistics of relevant departments, from September 2024 to April 2025, the retail sales of home appliances have maintained double-digit growth for eight consecutive months. In April, the retail sales of household electrical appliances and audio-visual equipment of producers above the designated size increased by 38.8% year-on-year, which ranked the first in the growth rate of the 16 major categories of consumer goods.

Since the beginning of this year, MOFCOM have been working with relevant departments to expand the scope and improve the quality of home appliance trade-in policy, with progress continuously being made. I would like to share with you several sets of data from four dimensions. According to the data on our home appliance trade-in information system, from January to April this year, more than 34 million consumers participated in the program, and cumulative purchase of the 12 categories of home appliances was more than 51 million units, driving sales of 174.5 billion yuan. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to April, retail sales of home appliances and audio-visual equipment of producers above the designated size amounted to 346.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 23.9%, 19.2 percentage points higher than the growth rate of total retail sales for the same period. According to the data of third-party market institutions, in the first four months of this year, the offline sales of home appliances such as water purifiers, hoods, gas stoves, and dishwashers in key cities grew by 45.3%, 42.0%, 40.4%, 25.0% respectively. According to the data of the appliance dismantling enterprises of China Co-op, the regulated dismantling of various types of used appliances exceeded 7 million units, an increase of 25% year-on-year.

Home appliance trade-in program is related to thousands of households. MOFCOM will continue to thoroughly implement the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, do a good job of organising and implementing, guide localities to continuously optimise the operation process, strengthen the communication and interpretation of the policy, continue to stimulate the vitality of consumption in home appliances market by continuously enhancing the effectiveness of the policy. Thank you.