SHANGHAI: Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Wednesday (Nov 5) trade restrictions have created barriers to doing business and that China would work to reform the global economic and trading system and make trade rules fairer, more reasonable and transparent.
He was speaking at the opening of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai which runs from Nov 5 to 10.
Li also vowed to further open up domestic markets and slammed “unilateral and protectionist” behaviour by other countries, as Beijing positions itself as an attractive destination for global firms spurned by US tariffs.
The Asian export giant has courted alternative trade partners throughout months of blistering tit-for-tat tariffs between China and the United States.
“Looking at certain unilateral and protectionist actions in the international arena today, we see they severely disrupt the international economic and trade order,” Li said.
He warned, without explicitly mentioning the United States, that the international order had been threatened this year by “various forms of decoupling and supply chain disruption, coupled with escalating trade frictions”.
Li said “many multinational corporations feel that doing business is now increasingly difficult”, and that developing nations were especially vulnerable to economic turbulence.
The CIIE event was launched under President Xi Jinping in 2018 to promote China’s free trade credentials and counter criticism of its trade surplus with many countries, though its trade surpluses with other markets have only grown in the years since.
While China’s supply of manufactured goods to the world is growing, its contribution to global demand is less significant, with imports barely growing – a dynamic economists have said fuels trade tension abroad and deflationary pressure back home.
China’s trade surplus is set to exceed last year’s record of roughly 1 trillion dollars as exporters offset a plunge in US sales due to higher US tariffs by selling more to the rest of the world, often at a loss in pursuit of market share.
Exports to the US fell about 27 per cent in September versus the same month a year prior, while shipments for the European Union, Southeast Asia and Africa grew 14 per cent, 16 per cent and 56 per cent respectively.
Li referred to the role tariffs have played in global trade this year, “making headlines” and making the need to strengthen global governance of trade “urgent”.
Last week, Xi and US President Donald Trump met in South Korea to reach a trade truce. The US agreed to reduce some tariffs on Chinese goods and pause some export controls, and China agreed to pause new export restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets and resume purchases of American soybeans.
More than 155 countries, regions and organisations plan to participate in this year’s CIIE, the commerce ministry said. Over 4,100 overseas enterprises will take part, with US companies maintaining the largest exhibition area for the seventh consecutive year.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-premier-li-qiang-global-trade-fair-transparent-ciie-5446431
