my country’s “Belt Road” trade volume exceeds US5 trillion

On the 27th, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the progress prospects of the joint construction of the "Belt Road" in the past five years. Ning Jizhe, Deputy Director of the Office of the Leading Group for Promoting the Construction of the “Belt Road”, Deputy Director of the National Development Reform Commission, Director of the National Bureau of Statistics, introduced that as of June 2018, my country’s trade in goods with countries along the route exceeded US$5 trillion. The investment exceeds 70 billion US dollars. Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming revealed that the next step will be to build a high-standard free trade zone with countries regions along the “Belt Road” to promote the formation of a large “Belt Road” market.

Ning Jizhe said when introducing the results of the “Belt Road”, that in the past five years, it has focused on the main framework of “six corridors, six routes, multiple countries multiple ports”, promoted substantial progress in a number of cooperation projects. The construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is progressing smoothly. The construction of China-Laos Railway, China-Thailand Railway Hungary-Serbia Railway is progressing steadily. Construction of some sections of the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway has started, Gwadar Port has full operational capacity. On August 26, the cumulative number of China-Europe freight trains exceeded 10,000, reaching 43 cities in 15 countries in Europe. It has reached the "three trips two trips", with a heavy container rate of 85%.

“As of June 2018, my country’s trade in goods with countries along the route exceeded US$5 trillion, foreign direct investment exceeded US$70 billion. The total investment in overseas economic trade cooperation zones built in countries along the route exceeded US$20 billion, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. , Creating billions of dollars in taxes to the local area.” Ning Jizhe introduced.

Qian Keming said that in the context of the decline negative growth of world trade, my country's trade with countries along the route has achieved an average annual positive growth of 1.1% in the past five years. my country has become a trading partner of 25 countries along the route.

Regarding how to further promote the in-depth development of the “Belt Road” construction, Qian Keming revealed that in the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will mainly do its work in five aspects: first, to successfully hold the first International Import Expo; second, to innovate in trade investment cooperation methods. The areas along the “Belt Road” are promoting the construction of some important projects, at the same time, the innovative fields including e-commerce, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence are promoted to the construction of the “Belt Road”; third, to accelerate the construction of open platforms, Including the pilot free trade zone, the Hainan Free Trade Port, as well as cross-border economic cooperation zones overseas economic cooperation zones; fourth, promote regional economic integration, build high-standard free trade zones with countries regions along the “Belt Road” , To promote the formation of a large “Belt Road” market; fifth, to implement some major opening-up measures announced by General Secretary Jinping in China, especially the comprehensive implementation of the pre-access national treatment plus negative list management system. At the same time, strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, promote the implementation of the WTO trade facilitation agreement, deepen cooperation along the route of large customs clearance.