The National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday released a report on China's economic and social development since the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China. According to the report, China's imports and exports of goods amounted to US $1.13 billion in 1950 and exceeded US $4.6 trillion in 2018, becoming the world's largest trading country in goods.

Over the past 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, China has achieved a great transformation from a closed or semi-closed country to an all-dimensional openness. Before the reform and opening up, trade in goods was mainly carried out under the centralized arrangement of the state according to the requirements of the plan. From 1950 to 1977, the cumulative import and export of goods reached US $148.7 billion, with an annual growth rate of less than 10%.

Since the reform and opening up, foreign trade has developed rapidly. From 1978 to 2018, China's import and export of goods increased by 223 times, with an average annual growth rate of 14.5 percent.

With the rapid expansion of import and export of goods, China's share of global trade in goods has gradually increased. According to the report, in 1978, China's total import and export of goods accounted for 0.8% of the global share, ranking 29th. In 2009, China became the largest exporter and the second largest importer of global trade in goods. In 2013, China surpassed the United States to become the world's largest trading nation in goods, a position it maintained from 2014 to 2015. From 2017 to 2018, China remained the largest country in global trade in goods. In 2018, China's total imports and exports of goods accounted for 11.8 percent of the global total.

"Bringing in" and "going global" go hand in hand. In 2018, China's paid-in foreign direct investment reached US $138.3 billion, 151 times that of 1983. China has been the world's second largest recipient of foreign investment for two consecutive years and the largest recipient of foreign investment among developing economies for 27 consecutive years. By the end of 2018, China had set up a total of 960,725 foreign-funded enterprises, with a paid-in foreign direct investment of $2,149.2 billion. The stock of outbound direct investment (ODI) reached 1.9 trillion US dollars, up from the 25th in 2002 to the 3rd in the world.

Source: Xinhua