2010-07-20 19:55

BEIJING -- A "high-low" trend was emerging for China's foreign trade in 2010, as growth in the first half would be stronger than in the second half of the year, Yao Jian, a spokesman with Ministry of Commerce told a briefing Tuesday.

China's exports will only moderately increase in the next half of the year, since the tightening monetary policies in emerging economies, such as Brazil and India, and the European sovereign debt crisis will curb overseas demand, Yao said.

He also pointed out that rising production costs, including 20-to-30- percent price hikes in raw materials in the first half of the year and increasing labor costs, will squeeze company profits.

Yao said trade friction will also weigh on the country's exports in the future.

"The accumulated effects of anti-dumping and anti-remedy measures on Chinese exports over the past two years, together with the 38 cases of trade remedy investigations in the first six months, will impact on the country's exports considerably," said Yao.

He said China will maintain its current trade policies while making them more targeted and flexible, and accelerate the transformation of the growth model, in a bid to promote coordinated and sustainable development.

The country's total value of imports and exports jumped 43.1 percent year-on-year to US$1.35 trillion in the January-to-June period, but the trade surplus was down 42.5 percent to US$55.3 billion.