China sees foreign trade value up 17.2 pct in 2016-2020

China's import and export value totaled 146.37 trillion yuan during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), showing an increase of 17.2 percent over the 124.88 trillion yuan during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), reported the People's Daily on last Friday quoting data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

The share of China's foreign trade in global import and export markets increased from 11.9 percent in 2015 to 12.8 percent in the first ten months of 2020.

From 2016 to 2020, 22.19 billion tonnes of cargo was imported and exported under the supervision of China's customs authorities, up 21.9 percent compared with the figure for the 2011-2015 period.

The business environment at ports in China kept improving from 2016 to 2020. During the period, the number of certificates needed for import and export was reduced from 86 to 41, thus cutting the overall customs clearance time and cost.

At the same time, a batch of modern regulatory equipments have been put into use for customs clearance in China in the past five years.