Hunan Province maintained stable and improved performance in foreign trade and stayed in line with expectations. Its total imports and exports increased by 7.6% year on year to 336.75 billion CNY in the first half of this year (H1), according to Changsha Customs, hitting a record high. Exports grew by 1.7% to 232.87 billion CNY in H1, while imports rose 23.8% to 103.88 billion CNY.

Hunan still saw faster growth on the basis of a relatively high growth rate of 28.1% in 2022. It achieved a foreign trade growth rate of 7.6% in H1, which is 5.5 percentage points higher than the national average. The total value of imports and exports ranked 15th and the growth rate ranked 9th in China.

Hunan Province had trade transactions with 231 countries and regions around the world. The ASEAN countries, the United States, and the European Union were Hunan's top three trading partners, with the import and export value of 70.12 billion CNY, 33.07 billion CNY, and 28.72 billion CNY respectively. The imports from and exports to those RCEP countries amounted to 106.69 billion CNY, an increase of 2.4% and accounting for 31.7% of the total. Hunan's foreign trade with countries along the "Belt and Road" routes surpassed 130 billion CNY, up 16.1% and accounting for 38.8% of the total. Its import and export volume to African counties was 31.18 billion CNY, with a growth rate of 26.1%.

Regionally, northern, southern, and western Hunan have made significant progress in their opening up and development efforts. The import and export value of Yueyang, Chenzhou, and Huaihua reached 36.9 billion CNY, 26.95 billion CNY, and 3.82 billion CNY, growing by 32.9%, 82.1%, and 134.6% respectively. The growth rates were much higher than the provincial average.

In terms of the types of export commodities, Hunan Province has shifted from a crude growth mode   of relying on cheap labor to a development mode of technologically manufactured products. Hunan exported 108 billion CNY of electromechanical products in H1, accounting for 46.4% of the provincial total export value. Exported clothing, shoes, boots, and other labor-intensive products were worth 47.31 billion CNY, accounting for 20.3%.

Green and low-carbon products became a new growth point in Hunan's foreign trade exports. The province exported 3.02 billion CNY of the "three new" products, including the electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar batteries, growing by 44.7% and 43 percentage points higher than the overall export growth rate.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Yu Jiangjiang

Chinese source: rednet