Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng has responded to January's huge drop in exports and imports by expressing confidence in the development of foreign trade.
Gao spoke after Customs of China reported that the country's total imports and exports dropped 9.8 percent in January from a year earlier. Exports fell 6.6 percent while imports tumbled 14.4 percent. Both numbers were far worse than expected in China's slowing economy. However, Gao expressed confidence in the stable and positive development of foreign trade.
"The traditional foreign trade enterprises are transforming and upgrading, while new foreign trade enterprises, together with some traditional ones, are speeding up innovation. On the other hand, pleasant changes have occurred in business formats."
"Comprehensive E-commerce service platforms have been established around the country, reducing their costs, improving efficiency and becoming a new format for the country to develop foreign trade.We've been seeing a long-term annual growth of 17.6 percent during the 30 years since the reform and opening up."
"We might be a little unadapted to a drop like the current situation, but we have to adapt to that because this is the trade between country and country. For the overall situation in 2016, I'm quite optimistic for the domestic area, I think we are confident that China's foreign trade will return to a steady and positive growth in this year," said Gao Hucheng, Minister of Commerce.
