News from Zhengzhou Customs on April 18 -- In the first three months of this year, Henan's total import and export value expanded 5.1 percent year-on-year to 203.37 billion yuan, ranking 9th in China and 1st in Central China, a good start for steady growth, especially when last year's total value of foreign trade had continuously exceeded 700 billion yuan and 800 billion yuan.

A China-Europe freight train in Zhengzhou. [Photo/dahe.cn]

In the first quarter, Henan's exports increased 2.5 percent to 123.41 billion yuan, while imports 9.5 percent to 79.96 billion yuan, resulting in a trade surplus of 43.45 billion yuan, shrinking 8.2 percent. Henan's January-March total imports and exports robustly expanded 19.5 percent year-on-year to 69.93 billion yuan, 13.7 percentage points higher than those of the national average.

Henan's foreign trade structure was further optimized. The imports and exports of general trade and bonded logistics maintained double-digit growth, while processing trade accounted for a smaller share. In the first three months, the import and export value of processing trade decreased 3.3 percent to 124.03 billion yuan (accounting for 61 percent of the provincial total), 5.4 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year, while that of general trade expanded 17.6 percent to 68.83 billion yuan (accounting for 33.8 percent of the provincial total), 3.6 percentage higher than that of the same period last year. Besides, the imports and exports of bonded logistics totaled 9.78 billion yuan, up 68.5 percent from a year earlier.

New foreign trade markets were expanding. Henan's trade volume with the RCEP member countries and the countries along the Belt and Road kept growing, although the US, the ASEAN, the EU (excluding the UK), China's Taiwan region and South Korea were still the province's top 5 trade partners. In the first quarter, Henan's import and export trade with the US, the ASEAN, China's Taiwan region and South Korea expanded 12.3 percent, 20 percent, 24.8 percent and 3.5 percent year-on-year to 46.02 billion yuan, 26.83 billion yuan, 20.56 billion yuan and 18.24 billion yuan respectively, while with the EU (excluding the UK) declined 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 22.07 billion yuan. Henan's trade volume with them accounted for 65.8 percent of the provincial total. Besides, Henan's trade volume with the RCEP member countries reported a growth of 3.7 percent to 57.24 billion yuan, while with the countries along the Belt and Road 19.5 percent to 53.78 billion yuan.

Foreign-invested enterprises accounted for a relatively high proportion of the provincial total, while private and state-owned enterprises saw their import and export value increase. To be specific, the import and export value of private and state-owned enterprises expanded 16.9 percent and 15.9 percent year-on-year respectively to 91.42 billion yuan (accounting for 45 percent of the provincial total, 4.5 percentage points higher that of the same period last year) and 16.96 billion yuan, while that of foreign-invested ones decreased 4.7 percent from a year earlier to 94.54 billion yuan.

A China-Europe freight train in Zhengzhou. [Photo/dahe.cn]

Mobile phones contributed 54 percent to the province's total exports, while labor-intensive products, aluminium products, agricultural products and hair products also saw their exports increase.In January-March period, Henan's exports of mechanical and electrical products stood at 81.64 billion yuan with a decrease of 6.2 percent year-on-year (accounting for 66.2 percent of the province's total exports), of which 66.69 billion yuan was contributed by mobile phones with a decrease of 10.9 percent year-on-year (accounting for 54 percent of the province's total exports), 7.65 billion yuan by labor-intensive products with an increase of 20 percent year-on-year (of which 2.21 billion yuan was made by sewing threads, up 16.9 percent from a year earlier), and 1.59 billion yuan by clothing with an increase of 21.2 percent year-on-year. During the same period, the export volume of aluminium products, agricultural products and hair products reached 6.37 billion yuan, 4.5 billion yuan and 3.97 billion yuan respectively, each increasing 134.3 percent, 91.3 percent and 3.1 percent.

Spare parts of mobile phones, metal ores and crude oil were Henan's major imports.Over the past three months, the import and export value of mobile phones, integrated circuits, spare parts of audio/video products and display modules of tablet computers accounted for 55.3 percent of the provincial total.

In the first quarter, Henan's prefecture-level cities also showed a growth trend in their foreign trade businesses, with Zhengzhou, Sanmenxia, Jiyuan, Puyang, Xuchang and Luoyang standing at the forefront, whose import and export value all exceeded 5 billion yuan. Specifically, the import and export value of Zhengzhou saw a year-on-year increase of 1 percent to 145.14 billion yuan, accounting for 71.4 percent of the provincial total, while that of Sanmenxia, Jiyuan, Puyang, Xuchang and Luoyang stood at 7.61 billion yuan, 7.48 billion yuan, 5.61 billion yuan, 5.39 billion yuan and 5.22 billion yuan. The growth rate of 13 prefecture-level cities including Hebi, Puyang and Zhumadian was within the range of 157.9 percent to 7.4 percent, surpassing the provincial average. (Chinese source: Henan Daily Reporter: Sun Jing Translator: Zhao Hanqing Proofreader: Zhang Junping)