Diversification, innovation to put China's foreign trade on steady path

China's foreign trade will follow a steady path as it embraces more diversification and new business models, said a report of Shanghai Securities News on Tuesday.

This year, China's foreign trade has been diversifying at a faster rate, covering more markets and business models.

With the emerging markets, China's international trade this year has seen substantial expansion. In the first eight months, its trade volume went up by 13.3 percent with the three other members of the BRICs, namely Brazil, Russia and India, and by 12 percent with countries covered in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In particular, China-Africa trade, reaching a total of 134.15 billion U.S. dollars by the end of August, saw remarkable growth of 20.4 percent. During this period, imports from this continent shot up by 33.4 percent to 65.62 billion US dollars.

For the same time span, Russia's exports to China also increased fast, with a 30.4 percent jump in crude oil, a 12.5 percent rise in electricity, and an 8.6 percent increase in coal. By the end of 2018, bilateral trade between the two countries is on track to top 100 billion U.S. dollars, according to a recent forecast by the spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce.

China's trade talks have been expanding and deepening with other countries too. In addition to the 17 free trade agreements already inked with 25 nations and regions across the world, negotiations are now underway with 27 countries to upgrade these agreements or sign new ones.

New trade models are developing fast, including the piloted cross-border e-commerce trade as well as the procurement trade that allows faster customs clearance at designated domestic marketplaces.

In the first seven months, China's cross-border e-commerce activities staged a jump of 68 percent in trade volume. This momentum is set to pick up speed with the introduction of new tax policies on Oct. 1, which exempt certain Chinese exports from consumption tax and value-added tax.

These novel business models of foreign trade will bring a strong boost to China's foreign trade and help overcome uncertainties in this respect, according to Bai Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.