A State Council executive meeting on June 29 examined current foreign trade conditions and laid out measures to keep the sound momentum of foreign trade. In the first five months of this year, China's total goods import and export value expanded 15.3% year-on-year, accelerating 0.4 percentage points from the January–April period. Services trade in the first four months rose 4.9% year-on-year, with faster growth in knowledge-intensive service exports and rapid increases in travel service exports and transport service imports.
The meeting called for maintaining the favorable trade trend by stepping up credit and credit insurance support, expanding imports of high-quality goods and services, improving the trade support system, and building public service platforms to promote balanced import and export. It also urged quality and efficiency upgrades in foreign trade, including raising the brand influence and added value of goods trade, strengthening service and digital trade, accelerating new trade models, and advancing integration of trade and investment and integration of domestic and foreign trade.
On opening-up, the meeting advocated actively expanding independent opening-up, safeguarding the international economic and trade order, and enhancing capacity for foreign-related security. Zhao Fujun, director of the Comprehensive Research Office at the Foreign Economic Relations Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, noted that external uncertainties have intensified this year, with spillover from geopolitical conflicts, making the trade upturn hard-won. He said the measures align with key trade innovation points in the 15th Five-Year Plan, providing a safety net for business entities against risks and charting the course for trade upgrading.