Volume of import and export increases by 10 times

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Category: Ningbo Business

Published: Monday, 26 September 2011 11:14

2011 sees the 10th anniversary of China's entry into the WTO. The statistics released by Ningbo Foreign Trade Bureau on September 21 show that the total value of import and export of Ningbo has increased by 10 times in the last decade.

Statistics show that in 2001 the total value of import and export stood at 8.9 billion US dollars, with exports of 6.3 billion US dollars and imports of 2.6 billion US dollars. While in 2010, the total value of import and export amounted to 82.9 billion US dollars, with the exports taking up 52.0 billion US dollars and imports 30.9 billion US dollars. For the first eight months of this year, the total value of import and export added up to 65.0 billion dollars, and the total value of the whole year is expected to be over 90 billion US dollars. The scale of import and export is now ten times that of 2001, and the growth rate is twice that of the national average. In the latest "Top 100 Foreign Trade Cities in China, 2010 – 2011" list, Ningbo ranks No. 7 among all the cities listed.

"Before China joined the WTO, our company's exports of tea towels and kitchen textiles to the United States and Germany were greatly restricted by the quotas. After China's entry into the WTO, the quota system was abolished and we can export our textile products on a larger scale. Thus our market share of textiles and garments became larger, which enabled us to get an upper hand when competing with other exporters from India and Pakistani, and our sales multiplied overnight", said He Zhixian, General Manager of Ningbo Qingfeng (Fresh) Yarn-Dyed Fabric Co. Ltd, when talking about the changes before and after China's entry into the WTO.

As a matter of fact, textile industry is not the only industry that benefits from China's entry into the WTO. It is said that during these ten years, Ningbo's opening-up economy took on a new look and underwent an unprecedentedly fast development. With more and more private companies turning to deal in foreign trade, Ningbo's foreign trade began to flourish. In the last decade, the volume of import and export, the volume of export, and the volume of import increased annually by 31.1%, 26% and 55.7% respectively. In 2010, for the first time, Ningbo's total value of import and export ranked among the top ten among the 36 provincial capitals and sub-provincial cities, with exports ranked No. 9 and imports No. 11 respectively.

With the expansion of foreign trade scale and the increasing experience in the international market, Ningbo is increasing the core competitiveness of its foreign trade enterprises and Ningbo-made products enjoy an ever-increasingly good reputation. By shifting from "made in Ningbo" to "created in Ningbo" and even to "intellectually created in Ningbo", foreign trade enterprises in Ningbo are no longer satisfied with the simple imitation and copying, and have greatly improved the added value of exports. As for the mode of foreign trade, the "mono-trade" mode focusing on exports is gradually replaced by the "multi-trade" mode, and exports and imports are developing harmoniously. At present, as the international economy becomes unstable and the cost of exports goes up due to the increasing exchange rate of RMB, the foreign trade enterprises in Ningbo begin to lay great emphasis on their transformation and upgrading. Improving the enterprises' capability of innovation and promoting new products are the two main strategies to deal with the hard time.