Photo taken on May 16, 2018 shows an automatic container dock in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. (Photo: Xinhua)

 
China's foreign trade dipped 6.4 percent year-on-year to 6.57 trillion yuan ($933 billion) in the first quarter (Q1), as the country faces increased pressure from the worldwide COVID-19 spread which has hit global trade activities, Chinese customs said on Tuesday.

Exports dropped 11.4 percent year-on-year to 3.33 trillion yuan in Q1 while imports were down 0.7 percent to 3.24 trillion yuan, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said. The trade surplus stood at 98.33 billion yuan during the period, down 80.6 percent on a yearly basis.

China's trade saw a rebound in March. During the month, China's foreign trade reached 2.45 trillion yuan, down 0.8 percent year-on-year, the decrease narrowing 8.7 percentage points compared with the first two months.

Exports dipped 3.5 percent to 1.29 trillion yuan in March while imports climbed 2.4 percent to 1.16 trillion yuan, GAC data showed.

Hu Qimu, senior fellow at the Sinosteel Economic Research Institute, said that China had expected grim foreign trade in Q1 as global demand slumped in view of a global industrial chain standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"However, we can see that China's imports and exports have rebounded since March, which on one hand shows that the epidemic is under control and resumption of work and production is proceeding in an orderly manner. On the other hand, it shows China's market has huge potential, thus imports have exceeded expectations," Hu told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"The better-than-expected March figures were partially due to growing global reliance on China's fast-moving consumer products, as the virus spreads rapidly overseas," Sang Baichuan, director of the Institute of International Business at the University of International Business and Economics and trade advisor to the Chinese government, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

However, Sang said, "We should not be too optimistic because the global demand for China's machinery and other industrial products has dropped amid factory shutdowns overseas." 

The country's year-round foreign trade volume may drop within 10 percent if the global pandemic can be controlled by the end of June, he noted.

China's foreign trade is faced with difficulties due to increasing uncertainties in the global market caused by the further spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and mounting downward pressure on the world economy, said Li Kuiwen, GAC spokesperson.

China has the confidence to stabilize its foreign trade and is preparing to advance higher-level opening up through efforts including strengthening its prevention and control of the virus spread at ports, continuously optimizing the business environment of ports and supporting domestic firms expanding in global markets, Li noted. 

In the first three months, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations became China's largest trading partner, and bilateral trade grew 6.1 percent to 991.34 billion yuan. China's trade with the EU fell 10.4 percent to 875.93 billion yuan, while China-US trade fell 18.3 percent to 668.01 billion yuan.

In terms of trade partners, China and the US were each other's largest trading partner before the trade war began, but now ASEAN has become China's biggest trading partner.

"The ASEAN region is increasingly dependent on China's economy, and in line with the trend of global industrial transfers, ASEAN will be an important region to receive part of the transfer of China's manufacturing industry," Hu added, noting that trade frictions between China and the US are not good for either side.