SZ's trade with BRI countries up 3.6%

Writer: Han Ximin  |  Editor: Stephanie Yang  |  From: Shenzhen Daily  |  Updated: 2020-11-04

The city’s foreign trade with countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was up 3.6 percent year on year to reach 478.4 trillion yuan (US$71 trillion) between January and September, statistics from Shenzhen Customs show.

In September, the trade increased by 4.7 percent year on year to 67.2 billion yuan.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remains the city’s major trading partner and the biggest partner under the BRI. In the first three quarters of the year, imports and exports with ASEAN totaled 336.5 billion yuan, an annual increase of 9 percent, making up 70 percent of the total trade of BRI countries. Trade with Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand increased greatly.

To offset the impact of COVID-19 that has seriously disrupted global logistics, Shenzhen Customs and related departments, including rail operators, opened cargo trains to Duisburg, Germany, in August. The city later began the operation of a route to Budapest to meet the need of enterprises in the Pearl River Delta region.

The trains cover 13,000 kilometers, taking products from Guangdong to Europe.

“We send our products to Europe through Sino-European trains and distribute our solar panels to Europe and Central Asia,” manager Guo with Shenzhen Topray Solar Technologies Co. Ltd. said during an interview. The exports of Topray Solar Technologies reached 320 million yuan by the end of September this year, up by 92 percent year on year.

Private enterprises played a pivotal role in the city’s foreign trade, as trade volume for private firms reached 1.3 trillion yuan, making up 60 percent of the total trade.

The exports of mechanical and electrical products to BRI countries increased by 180.2 billion yuan between January and September, up by 2.1 percent year on year. Computers, mobile phones and LCDs are favorites of BRI countries.

In September, the container throughput at Shenzhen Western Port area reached 1.16 million TEUs, up by 32.5 percent year on year, a new record in a single month in the port’s history.