In the year of 2020,despite the impacts of COVID-19,China took the lead in recovering the economy,and as a result,imports and exports quickly stabilized,fully reflecting China’s strong capabilities in commodity supply. Amid the deep recession of the global economy,China became the primary driving force for global trade growth. Now with the recovery of the global economy and the continuous improvement of the domestic demand market,China’s foreign trade is expected to achieve steady growth in 2021,with a faster growth rate in the first half of the year and a slowdown in the second half. However,it is still exposed to a number of uncertainties,including repeated outbreaks of the pandemic,relocation of industrial chains,changes in the US policy towards China and the growingfluctuations of the renminbi exchange rate. In the short run,China should continue to implement foreign trade stabilization policies such as facilitating customs clearance and reducing corporate costs. In the long run,China should push the opening up to a higher level,like relaxing the restrictions for market access,promoting fair competition,improving the level of openness in systems for protection of intellectual property rights,bankruptcy and small and medium-sized enterprises,creating a market-oriented,law-based,internationalized business environment,and improving the economic and trade rules against the international ones,so as to lay a solid foundation for China’s foreign trade development.

Review of China’s Foreign Trade in 2020

In 2020,China’s foreign trade development mainly exhibited the following characteristics: