Consumer goods trade fuels Guangdong's growth from January to October

On Thursday, Guangdong Customs issued a statement outlining the province's trade performance during the first ten months of the year, highlighting how its efforts to diversify its global markets have paid off, partly due to increased imports of key production materials and consumer goods related to people's livelihoods.

According to the statement, Guangdong imported integrated circuits valued at 1.05 trillion yuan ($147.89 billion) from January to October, marking a 14.6 percent year-on-year increase, and making up 37.2 percent of the province's total import volume.

The province's imports of computers and their components topped 287 billion yuan, up 21.2 percent year-on-year. Imports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment stood at 64.77 billion yuan, rising 48.4 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, from January to October, Guangdong achieved double-digit year-on-year growth in the imports of grain, aquatic products, dairy products, and edible oil, hitting 36.77 billion yuan (17.6 percent), 18.22 billion yuan (33.2 percent), 15.09 billion yuan (17.1 percent), and 5.46 billion yuan (46.8 percent).

The fast import growth has helped the province achieve an import and export volume of more than 7.8 trillion yuan, up year-on-year 3.7 percent and representing 20.9 percent of the country's total.

The province's exports witnessed a year-on-year increase of 1.7 percent to come to 4.98 trillion. Its imports enjoyed an even faster year-on-year growth of 7.5 percent to reach 2.82 trillion yuan.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remained Guangdong's biggest trade partner. ASEAN's trade volume with Guangdong reached 1.26 trillion yuan, up year-on-year 5.2 percent.

Guangdong's trade with emerging markets, including the Middle East, Africa, and the five Central Asian nations, also increased, showing year-on-year growth of 5.7 percent, 9.2 percent, and 24.9 percent, respectively. These rates were 2 percentage points, 5.5 percentage points, and 21.2 percentage points faster than Guangdong's overall trade growth rate, respectively.

Meanwhile, Guangdong's trade volume with countries involved in the country's Belt and Road Initiative reached more than three trillion yuan, up year-on-year 4.2 percent and accounting for 38.5 percent of the province's total import and export volume.